Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Blog Posts => Topic started by: Alex on October 02, 2015, 02:36:52 PM
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Blog post here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2015/10/02/expanded-battles/).
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Link incoming
*drools in anticipation*
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Link incoming
*drools in anticipation*
*page refreshing intensifies*
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Link incoming
*Rapidly presses f5, staring at the forum page*
Edit: Ninja'ed. Curse youuu!
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(Jeez, you guys work fast. Three comments already?!? ... make that four.)
Y'all know you can just go to the blog, right?
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2015/10/02/expanded-battles/
It wasn't up there until literally 30 seconds ago :)
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I'm more excited for this than any other feature announced so far (and that says a lot, considering how amazing the other stuff has been). It completely turns interacting with other fleets inside-out, from something that has always felt like it didn't make any sense and took a lot away from the game into exactly what I want to see!
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YES! I didn't dare to hope for this since I remembered you saying at one point that it was too tricky to do. Glad you got it sorted out.
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Wow, epic!
For me, this is the most exciting new feature thus far!
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(Jeez, you guys work fast. Three comments already?!? ... make that four.)
Y'all know you can just go to the blog, right?
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2015/10/02/expanded-battles/
It wasn't up there until literally 30 seconds ago :)
Annnnd I deleted that post literally 10 seconds after posting because I saw the link had appeared. xD I think there must be a brief relay between posts being submitted/edited/deleted and when those changed are reflected; I didn't mean to be snooty with that post.
Soooo... my really big question is what will this look like from the player's perspective when initiating a combat and other fleets come to support? Will there be a short period where we still see the campaign layer with both fleets in contact and other fleets can choose to swoop in and support, will they appear at the engage/disengage screen where we see each fleet's composition, or will our first notice be a lot of additional ships appearing in the tactical combat stage? Will joining fleets appear immediately or partway through the battle?
I'm also somewhat concerned about the implications for taking heavily fortified bases, but I'll withhold those until I see the system in action. =)
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So. Much. Like!
I adored the option to have some NPCs fighting for me in Age of Wonders, and I'm just happy to see it in Starsector!
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OMG I NEED NOW!!!!!
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This is an excellent addition, and should make the game much more friendly for new players. :)
I'm curious about a few details. How are reputation/loot handled? Will fleets sometimes break off between sub-battles when their ships are worn out, or do they always support allies after the initial decision? And if they can leave, how is only part of a larger fleet retreating handled?
Regarding battles taking place on the campaign map: is simulated combat done in discrete "rounds" like in Mount & Blade where you can hover over them and watch combatants disappear every few seconds, or is it a single timer?
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If NPC fleets can join into a player's battle in progress, that means that campaign time is running during battles now. Do we get any sort of awareness of what's going on in the campaign layer during battle? To see if anybody's coming to aid or murder us? It seems necessary, even if it's just a little minimap with friendlies and enemies marked
(Or can they not do that?)
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How are allied ships outwardly identified via script?
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If NPC fleets can join into a player's battle in progress, that means that campaign time is running during battles now. Do we get any sort of awareness of what's going on in the campaign layer during battle? To see if anybody's coming to aid or murder us? It seems necessary, even if it's just a little minimap with friendlies and enemies marked
(Or can they not do that?)
Nah.
When the player is in battle, no campaign time passes.
Instead, nearby fleets are pulled into the battle when the engagement begins.
What isn't clear is whether these supporting fleets are available from the outset, or if they have delayed arrival. (based upon their speed & distance from the battle site).
When the player encounters another fleet rather than an ongoing battle, nearby fleets will support one side or the other in the event hostilities break out/quote]
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Love it, this will add that amazing new player thing EVN had where you could go to Tichel and watch Auroran and Federation forces blasting each other to pieces, giving a token contribution to the fight. Exact opposite of what its been for a small weak character in Starsector. Finally rounding out the game's difficulty curve is important.
Regarding battles taking place on the campaign map: is simulated combat done in discrete "rounds" like in Mount & Blade where you can hover over them and watch combatants disappear every few seconds, or is it a single timer?
Also really curious about how this looks on the campaign map now.
My only worry with this feature is very large fleet battles, as they are usually messy and involve friendly fire, collision parties and stupid frigate AI.
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Thank you all, this makes me happy :)
YES! I didn't dare to hope for this since I remembered you saying at one point that it was too tricky to do. Glad you got it sorted out.
Yeah, some parts of this were... involved. A bit concerned some bugs may slip through, truth be told - this is a tough one to test out comprehensively, just because of how many different things in all layers of the game it touches. Ah, well, will deal with 'em when they happen.
Soooo... my really big question is what will this look like from the player's perspective when initiating a combat and other fleets come to support? Will there be a short period where we still see the campaign layer with both fleets in contact and other fleets can choose to swoop in and support, will they appear at the engage/disengage screen where we see each fleet's composition, or will our first notice be a lot of additional ships appear in the tactical combat stage? Will joining fleets appear immediately or partway through the battle?
The second screenshot is what it looks like. The "supporting" fleets don't actually move from where they are, they just need to be within a certain (relatively short) range to join in.
(Not exactly what you asked, but related: if you join an ongoing battle, you'll be a bit late to it, with some combat time - up to a minute or two - having elapsed.)
I'm curious about a few details. How are reputation/loot handled? Will fleets sometimes break off between sub-battles when their ships are worn out, or do they always support allies after the initial decision? And if they can leave, how is only part of a larger fleet retreating handled?
Reputation and loot are reduced by what fraction (under the hood, in terms of fleet points) the player's fleet is of the overall forces, at the start of the battle. Likewise for bounty rewards; you'll only get a share and not the full bounty.
Once a fleet joins a battle, it can't leave until one side decides to disengage, at which point there's a final autoresolve round and that battle ends.
Regarding battles taking place on the campaign map: is simulated combat done in discrete "rounds" like in Mount & Blade where you can hover over them and watch combatants disappear every few seconds, or is it a single timer?
Discrete rounds every day or thereabouts, which a "engage or disengage" decision being made by each side every round.
If NPC fleets can join into a player's battle in progress, that means that campaign time is running during battles now. Do we get any sort of awareness of what's going on in the campaign layer during battle? To see if anybody's coming to aid or murder us? It seems necessary, even if it's just a little minimap with friendlies and enemies marked
(Or can they not do that?)
They can't join a player battle in progress, and campaign time doesn't run. Who joins a player-initiated battle is decided at the point you interact with another fleet. Running time in the campaign etc would be rather complicated and, as you point out, would also lead to other complications.
What isn't clear is whether these supporting fleets are available from the outset, or if they have delayed arrival. (based upon their speed & distance from the battle site).
From the outset.
How are allied ships outwardly identified via script?
FleetMemberAPI.isAlly(), ShipAPI.isAlly(), FighterWingAPI.isAlly(), if that's what you're asking.
My only worry with this feature is very large fleet battles, as they are usually messy and involve friendly fire, collision parties and stupid frigate AI.
Well, on the bright side, that'd make those issues easier to spot and fix. I'm cautiously optimistic about the new and improved ship AI, though :)
Edit: attaching what a battle looks like in the campaign.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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I meant more in terms of whether you changed the implementation of the Owner field. That 0/1/100 *** is the most magical of magical numbers.
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Soooo... my really big question is what will this look like from the player's perspective when initiating a combat and other fleets come to support? Will there be a short period where we still see the campaign layer with both fleets in contact and other fleets can choose to swoop in and support, will they appear at the engage/disengage screen where we see each fleet's composition, or will our first notice be a lot of additional ships appear in the tactical combat stage? Will joining fleets appear immediately or partway through the battle?
The second screenshot is what it looks like. The "supporting" fleets don't actually move from where they are, they just need to be within a certain (relatively short) range to join in.
(Not exactly what you asked, but related: if you join an ongoing battle, you'll be a bit late to it, with some combat time - up to a minute or two - having elapsed.)
I'm curious about a few details. How are reputation/loot handled? Will fleets sometimes break off between sub-battles when their ships are worn out, or do they always support allies after the initial decision? And if they can leave, how is only part of a larger fleet retreating handled?
Reputation and loot are reduced by what fraction (under the hood, in terms of fleet points) the player's fleet is of the overall forces, at the start of the battle. Likewise for bounty rewards; you'll only get a share and not the full bounty.
Once a fleet joins a battle, it can't leave until one side decides to disengage, at which point there's a final autoresolve round and that battle ends.
Edit: attaching what a battle looks like in the campaign.
Thanks for the explanations and the pic!
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Bleaiujksdhfkjdsbngsdhngiuodfhgdjkfngkjdfhngioj multifleet battles dsgnoiergnhdfklmghnioernhmiornhm yay!
I am somewhat disappointed that they'll be completely instantaneous for the player. (Or that's what it seems.)
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I meant more in terms of whether you changed the implementation of the Owner field. That 0/1/100 *** is the most magical of magical numbers.
Ah - no, that's still the same. Thought it was too, er, magical to mess with. I'd hate to have to fix the AI in all the places that could silently break if that was changed.
FleetEncounterContext/FleetInteractionDialogPluginImpl, on the other hand, did need a pretty major rewrite.
Bleaiujksdhfkjdsbngsdhngiuodfhgdjkfngkjdfhngioj multifleet battles dsgnoiergnhdfklmghnioernhmiornhm yay!
:D
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Yes!
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I'm curious about a few details. How are reputation/loot handled? Will fleets sometimes break off between sub-battles when their ships are worn out, or do they always support allies after the initial decision? And if they can leave, how is only part of a larger fleet retreating handled?
[...]
Once a fleet joins a battle, it can't leave until one side decides to disengage, at which point there's a final autoresolve round and that battle ends.
I'm guessing the one who decides for that side is the original fleet involved?
It just occurred to me how insanely dangerous travelling around enemy bases will be now. Barad will go from a favored early game stomping ground to a death trap (I'm not complaining, it makes sense that bases shouldn't be loot/xp pinatas). This change feels good. :)
If we interact with/get caught by an enemy and tons of nearby fleets leap to its defense, will immediately retreating involve all of them or just the original?
For situations like the above maybe there could be a "scramble fleet" option at the start of combat that costs a ton of CR/autodeploys everything but allows us to fight just the original fleet, no allies or enemy support. Nobody likes getting surprise dogpiled.
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Well, if I had not been jazzed before I would definitely be jazzed now. This is looking very nice, Alex.
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Eeeeee! Multifleet battles! Stellar mosh pits! Space orgies! Oh, be still my beating heart~!
G-great work Alex, I can't wait for this positively amazing feature (in addition to officers and ship AI)!
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I'm guessing the one who decides for that side is the original fleet involved?
Yeah, as long as it's alive. After that, the fleet with the most FP.
(Well, technically there's a combined fleet that decides, with its own AI, but it has the MemoryAPI of the original/largest fleet.)
If we interact with/get caught by an enemy and tons of nearby fleets leap to its defense, will immediately retreating involve all of them or just the original?
All of them. And with the change to escape scenarios to start at a much closer range, it's going to be trouble.
For situations like the above maybe there could be a "scramble fleet" option at the start of combat that costs a ton of CR/autodeploys everything but allows us to fight just the original fleet, no allies or enemy support.
Hmm, maybe. On the other hand, this is a "get out of jail for (not) free" card, where there's already an option to do that where you just play out the escape. This feels like yeah, it'd add a choice, but it's a muddy choice because the two options feel similar.
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It seems oddly assymetrical that NPC fleets can't join in progress while the player can. Maybe it could be done without needing to pass time in campaign (which is obviously an enourmous can of worms)? Have fleets that are far away but still close enough to interact arrive with a delay, maybe some fleets delay engaging until a later point in the battle (see if it's going their way before commiting). I think it would make things more interesting and intuitive, and it seems a lot more doable than running the campaign in the background.
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It seems oddly assymetrical that NPC fleets can't join in progress while the player can. Maybe it could be done without needing to pass time in campaign (which is obviously an enourmous can of worms)? Have fleets that are far away but still close enough to interact arrive with a delay, maybe some fleets delay engaging until a later point in the battle (see if it's going their way before commiting). I think it would make things more interesting and intuitive, and it seems a lot more doable than running the campaign in the background.
I'm happy with the current conceit to keeping the cans o' worms manageable, but I'd also like to see this if possible.
Also, rounds of a full day sound rather imprecise when battles are supposed to take "a couple of days or so" - any chance they could be updated every half-day?
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Sorry if this was asked/answered and I glazed over it in excitement, presumably the relations of the player and the factions have a part in who the player can join, I assume this will also positively effect the relations of the faction we team up with?
If both fleets are hostile to the player, will the player be prevented from engaging until the fight is broken up?
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I am so hyped for this. Will we be able to see the orders our allies have issued? I assume we benefit from them holding nav buoys etc., but it'd be nice to know which ones they're going for.
I also guess we can only repair/rearm fighters on our own carriers?
Also, what happens if the side with the most FP changes over the course of a battle- say, you arrive late and the original Hegemony trade fleet gets its teeth kicked in but your ships are still in fighting condition. Do you seize control of the engagement and have the option to continue (because you know you can outfly the remaining enemy despite their FP advantage), or will the Hegemony AI decide to retreat and force you to come along?
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Wow, this is an amazing addition and it will completely change how decisions are made in the early game and when assaulting fleets nearby faction planets and all. I was and well still am a bit skeptical on all the other changes from this patch, mainly everything related to the transponders or what not, but this makes me hyped without a shadow of doubt.
Hope you can get to those "long term late-game plans" you mentioned, the game really needs something there.
Well, on the bright side, that'd make those issues easier to spot and fix. I'm cautiously optimistic about the new and improved ship AI, though :)
Oh? I guess this goes in hand with the officers feature too, right? I saw some portraits belonging to third party fleets in those screenshots, are NPC fleets finally using officers? IIRC you mentioned they weren't using it yet back in that blog post.
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I've mentioned it in a suggestion many moons ago, but the way I would handle campaign time passing for player battles would be to have it pass between when they choose their option (battle, retreat, etc.) and when the battle, escape battle, etc. actually begin.
You click battle, a day or two goes by, giving nearby fleets a chance to join, then the battle happens instantly campaign-time-wise.
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If both fleets are hostile to the player, will the player be prevented from engaging until the fight is broken up?
^ Good question about third party joiners above - can we swoop in and kill everyone? Similarly, will there be repercussions for destroying allied forces in battle? We don't want to see people fighting alongside their "allies", then ruthlessly backstabbing them without consequence.
(also, please let this give us a rep boost when we assist a faction!)
I see great advantages in this for people running carrier/fighter heavy fleets, and more generally for people willing to deploy a bunch of low-logistical-profile ships and hug the beacons well behind the front lines.
Last thing: do AI fleets consider the strength of nearby fleets when deciding to initiate combat? If so, several small fleets could gang up on large ones. They probably shouldn't consider the player fleet, though - sometimes the player will be just passing through and not willing to lend a hand. Also, I could see players 'joining battle with allies', only to let them deploy first and get horribly murdered before deploying in force. =P
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I think my favorite thing, is that on an escort mission, You now have ample opportunity to protect the fleet in combat.
I do have a small concern though. What's stopping pirate fleets from over-estimating and attacking a small trade fleet, and then having several hegemony patrols crush it merclessly?
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For situations like the above maybe there could be a "scramble fleet" option at the start of combat that costs a ton of CR/autodeploys everything but allows us to fight just the original fleet, no allies or enemy support.
Hmm, maybe. On the other hand, this is a "get out of jail for (not) free" card, where there's already an option to do that where you just play out the escape. This feels like yeah, it'd add a choice, but it's a muddy choice because the two options feel similar.
Hmm, retreat is "I can't win this, so I have to escape with as much of my fleet as I can", whereas I would see scrambling as "I can only win against the foe I'm currently facing, and am willing to fight them at a disadvantage to do so before their allies arrive". Retreating would be best for fast fleets, scrambling for powerful ones. Right now a slow fleet is dead if they have to run from an opponent they can't defeat, and that will become more common once fleets can gang up on you. This would give them an option that allows survival.
If scrambling your fleet also blocks retreat for your side (lore-wise it could be explained as attempting to punch through the enemy fleet before their allies arrive, so you're effectively surrounded once battle starts), the two options become even more distinct.
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This looks really awesome.
I'm going to be that guy and ask: What happens if I start shooting at allied ships in combat? Will they turn hostile to your fleet, or will they take it like a champ, just like ships from the player's fleet?
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Awesome. Awesome!
Will enemy fleets retreat independently, so that it makes sense to concentrate your efforts against one enemy first until they retreat? Can you even distinguish enemy forces?
Can my fighters use allied carriers and vise versa?
What about objective bonuses, are they shared or is there internal competition?
Can I issue escort orders on allied ships?
Thanks for your answers :)
The "supporting" fleets don't actually move from where they are, they just need to be within a certain (relatively short) range to join in.
Mh, if that range isn't visible it might lead to situations were you thought your target fleet was out of range. And then get frustrated when you find yourself unexpectedly in an unwinnable fight.
An indicator which fleets are in range of a set target might help. Or the delayed entry thing.
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This. Is going. To be. So. Fun.
So... I'd imagine there is some kind of rep hit if you decide to retreat from battle while your allies are engaged? I wouldn't imagine they'd like you helping out just to duck out and let them get demolished.
And what's the situation with friendly fire? My allies wouldn't turn and start shooting at me if one of my stray bullets hit one of their ships... would they...?
And one more thing, someone above said something about escort missions. Are there now more missions than just the procurement contract now or nah?
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It seems oddly assymetrical that NPC fleets can't join in progress while the player can. Maybe it could be done without needing to pass time in campaign (which is obviously an enourmous can of worms)? Have fleets that are far away but still close enough to interact arrive with a delay, maybe some fleets delay engaging until a later point in the battle (see if it's going their way before commiting). I think it would make things more interesting and intuitive, and it seems a lot more doable than running the campaign in the background.
I'm happy with the current conceit to keeping the cans o' worms manageable, but I'd also like to see this if possible.
Also, rounds of a full day sound rather imprecise when battles are supposed to take "a couple of days or so" - any chance they could be updated every half-day?
Yeah, I (probably not unexpectedly) considered doing something like this. Didn't go for it just due to the complexity it adds.
I do see the potential for some nice dramatic moments here, though - can you take out that merchant convoy before the Hegemony patrol shows up? But then, just trying to think through how that would work, it gets weird. Would the merchant actually engage you if, say, the patrol wouldn't show for 3 minutes? The "right" move would be to engage and then deploy nothing until 3 minutes elapse, so some mechanics would need to be in place to prevent that. What if the merchant decides to disengage instead, where would reinforcing ships come from? Probably the top border, but that's not a handled case right now. There's more stuff like that that I'm not thinking through right now; as much as it seems interesting I think it also gets really, really messy in trying to connect up to all the different ways battles can end.
Sorry if this was asked/answered and I glazed over it in excitement, presumably the relations of the player and the factions have a part in who the player can join, I assume this will also positively effect the relations of the faction we team up with?
Yep, with the gain depending on how much of a help you were - i.e. helping a patrol stomp a single Hound isn't going to give you much reputation.
If both fleets are hostile to the player, will the player be prevented from engaging until the fight is broken up?
Right.
I am so hyped for this. Will we be able to see the orders our allies have issued? I assume we benefit from them holding nav buoys etc., but it'd be nice to know which ones they're going for.
You don't see their orders - it'd be hard to make that look right when you can give the same orders, or different orders on the same objective. But you can tell where they're going based on, well, where they're going. It's pretty clear right from the start.
I also guess we can only repair/rearm fighters on our own carriers?
Correct! (Man, all the fun edge cases of having allies.)
Also, what happens if the side with the most FP changes over the course of a battle- say, you arrive late and the original Hegemony trade fleet gets its teeth kicked in but your ships are still in fighting condition. Do you seize control of the engagement and have the option to continue (because you know you can outfly the remaining enemy despite their FP advantage), or will the Hegemony AI decide to retreat and force you to come along?
If you join a battle, your allies will make the decisions as long as they exist. If all your allies are destroyed, then it goes back to you making decisions (all the fun edge cases!). It's like, if the allies only have freighters left, *they* want to get away, and they don't know for certain what you'll do.
Hope you can get to those "long term late-game plans" you mentioned, the game really needs something there.
Same, it definitely does. After 0.7a (and the hotfix) dev should be much more focused on that. Just need all (or, at least, most) of the building blocks in place, and they're getting there.
Oh? I guess this goes in hand with the officers feature too, right? I saw some portraits belonging to third party fleets in those screenshots, are NPC fleets finally using officers? IIRC you mentioned they weren't using it yet back in that blog post.
Yeah, NPC fleets have officers now! Quantity and quality varies by faction, with larger fleets generally having more and higher level officers.
I've mentioned it in a suggestion many moons ago, but the way I would handle campaign time passing for player battles would be to have it pass between when they choose their option (battle, retreat, etc.) and when the battle, escape battle, etc. actually begin.
You click battle, a day or two goes by, giving nearby fleets a chance to join, then the battle happens instantly campaign-time-wise.
Yeah, thought about that. "A day or two" is 10-20 seconds, which imo is far too long in terms of game flow. Could fast forward it but there's a limit to how much the engine can do that. Plus it just gets a lot messier in terms of implementation; think the current customs inspection "flow" which (rightly) has generated some, ah, complaints. And which is quite a pain code-wise.
^ Good question about third party joiners above - can we swoop in and kill everyone? Similarly, will there be repercussions for destroying allied forces in battle? We don't want to see people fighting alongside their "allies", then ruthlessly backstabbing them without consequence.
You can't join unless you're hostile to only one side and/or friendly to to only one side.
(also, please let this give us a rep boost when we assist a faction!)
Right, it does that.
Last thing: do AI fleets consider the strength of nearby fleets when deciding to initiate combat? If so, several small fleets could gang up on large ones. They probably shouldn't consider the player fleet, though - sometimes the player will be just passing through and not willing to lend a hand. Also, I could see players 'joining battle with allies', only to let them deploy first and get horribly murdered before deploying in force. =P
They do consider nearby allied strength, yes.
I do have a small concern though. What's stopping pirate fleets from over-estimating and attacking a small trade fleet, and then having several hegemony patrols crush it merclessly?
Nobody said being a pirate is a safe occupation :)
Hmm, retreat is "I can't win this, so I have to escape with as much of my fleet as I can", whereas I would see scrambling as "I can only win against the foe I'm currently facing, and am willing to fight them at a disadvantage to do so before their allies arrive". Retreating would be best for fast fleets, scrambling for powerful ones. Right now a slow fleet is dead if they have to run from an opponent they can't defeat, and that will become more common once fleets can gang up on you. This would give them an option that allows survival.
If scrambling your fleet also blocks retreat for your side (lore-wise it could be explained as attempting to punch through the enemy fleet before their allies arrive, so you're effectively surrounded once battle starts), the two options become even more distinct.
Hmm, yeah, that makes sense. I like the "can't retreat" bit, also. But it does also mean that you have a way of ignoring all that business about nearby fleets being able to support each other, for a price - but "price" tends to mean less in the later game. All in all, I think I'd like to see how a base version of this plays out before adding more onto it.
I'm going to be that guy and ask: What happens if I start shooting at allied ships in combat? Will they turn hostile to your fleet, or will they take it like a champ, just like ships from the player's fleet?
And what's the situation with friendly fire? My allies wouldn't turn and start shooting at me if one of my stray bullets hit one of their ships... would they...?
Right now, nothing. Of note: salvage and bounty split is based on fleet sizes pre combat, so at least that's not a reason to shove anti-matter blasters up a firendly ship's tailpipe.
Will enemy fleets retreat independently, so that it makes sense to concentrate your efforts against one enemy first until they retreat? Can you even distinguish enemy forces?
They don't, and you can't.
Can my fighters use allied carriers and vise versa?
Can't.
What about objective bonuses, are they shared or is there internal competition?
Can I issue escort orders on allied ships?
*checks* Apparently, yes :)
Mh, if that range isn't visible it might lead to situations were you thought your target fleet was out of range. And then get frustrated when you find yourself unexpectedly in an unwinnable fight.
An indicator which fleets are in range of a set target might help. Or the delayed entry thing.
Hmm, yeah. Maybe just something that briefly shows the range when you click on the target - it's never going to be a sure thing whether someone will join or not, as whether they're just in or out of range could change last second, but some way of showing that range might be a good thing. You do, of course, have the option to try to disengage in these circumstances, and in some sense it's a punishment for cutting things too close, but, right.
So... I'd imagine there is some kind of rep hit if you decide to retreat from battle while your allies are engaged? I wouldn't imagine they'd like you helping out just to duck out and let them get demolished.
There's no penalty right now. Aside from losing CR and not getting any salvage. I still need to work through the case where you engage, allies join in, and then you leave first, though.
And one more thing, someone above said something about escort missions. Are there now more missions than just the procurement contract now or nah?
Not at the moment.
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For situations like the above maybe there could be a "scramble fleet" option at the start of combat that costs a ton of CR/autodeploys everything but allows us to fight just the original fleet, no allies or enemy support.
Hmm, maybe. On the other hand, this is a "get out of jail for (not) free" card, where there's already an option to do that where you just play out the escape. This feels like yeah, it'd add a choice, but it's a muddy choice because the two options feel similar.
Hmm, retreat is "I can't win this, so I have to escape with as much of my fleet as I can", whereas I would see scrambling as "I can only win against the foe I'm currently facing, and am willing to fight them at a disadvantage to do so before their allies arrive". Retreating would be best for fast fleets, scrambling for powerful ones. Right now a slow fleet is dead if they have to run from an opponent they can't defeat, and that will become more common once fleets can gang up on you. This would give them an option that allows survival.
If scrambling your fleet also blocks retreat for your side (lore-wise it could be explained as attempting to punch through the enemy fleet before their allies arrive, so you're effectively surrounded once battle starts), the two options become even more distinct.
On the other hand one can say that giving a big player-owned fleet an actual threat to think of in the late game is actually a good idea!
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is this the biggest update we have ever had?
10/10
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If both fleets are hostile to the player, will the player be prevented from engaging until the fight is broken up?
Right.
This is a bit disappointing, I was looking forward to three-way battles. A scenario in which both enemy fleets by themselves would be too much for you but if you sneak into their battle and try to pick them off one at a time while they are locked in battle with each other sounds very appealing to me.
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Nuts 'n bolts questions:
- How do allies interact with the FP/logistics limit for ships in a single battle? Do they share a common cap?
- Say an NPC-NPC battle takes two days. Joining at 1.99 days is functionally the same as joining right at the start, I take it?
Unrelated thought: Officer portrait above the flux/CR bar on every ship looks like clutter, at least judging from the screenshot. They tell you there's an officer on board, but unless you remember which face is which officer it doesn't seem like they communicate more info than that (like the key "what combat skills will this ship have?")
Could ships instead get a "has officer" icon, with the portrait only on targeted ships and in places like the ship info card?
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This is a bit disappointing, I was looking forward to three-way battles. A scenario in which both enemy fleets by themselves would be too much for you but if you sneak into their battle and try to pick them off one at a time while they are locked in battle with each other sounds very appealing to me.
Unfortunately it might be prevented by practical concerns regarding the AI. Modding experiments with adding additional sides resulted in some issues, though it's been long enough that about the only thing I recall was the side 3 ship, which if memory serves was hoped to be neutral, was instead hostile to everything. This may no longer be the case given the modifications to the AI this change would have necessitated, but it may still be beyond what the game can handle.
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This is a bit disappointing, I was looking forward to three-way battles. A scenario in which both enemy fleets by themselves would be too much for you but if you sneak into their battle and try to pick them off one at a time while they are locked in battle with each other sounds very appealing to me.
Unfortunately it might be prevented by practical concerns regarding the AI. Modding experiments with adding additional sides resulted in some issues, though it's been long enough that about the only thing I recall was the side 3 ship, which if memory serves was hoped to be neutral, was instead hostile to everything. This may no longer be the case given the modifications to the AI this change would have necessitated, but it may still be beyond what the game can handle.
It just occurred to me, since I'm assuming (and you confirmed) three-way battles would be a pain code-wise, what if we could choose to assist one of the hostile factions? As in after you click their battle you have a choice to [Assist X Faction] [Assist Y Faction]
Then they'd be neutral to you in that battle I guess but turn hostile if you open fire to any of their ships. It'd make for a nice way to get some rep points with hostile factions since getting those are incredibly difficult and perhaps this might be a good new option. Of course we could also have some limitations, like not being able to assists fleets with the upper hand or having a hate level above "hostile" that would deny even actions like this.
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How did I miss this?
OH HELL YES MY PREDICTION WAS RIIIIIGHT!!!!
(http://www.cinemablend.com/images/news_img/69306/rocky_69306.jpg)
There is no way I can express my excitement through words right now. Just...something amazing.
EDIT:
Must calm down and compose myself before reading this, and posting something completely harmful to myself, heh.
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This is a bit disappointing, I was looking forward to three-way battles. A scenario in which both enemy fleets by themselves would be too much for you but if you sneak into their battle and try to pick them off one at a time while they are locked in battle with each other sounds very appealing to me.
Unfortunately it might be prevented by practical concerns regarding the AI. Modding experiments with adding additional sides resulted in some issues, though it's been long enough that about the only thing I recall was the side 3 ship, which if memory serves was hoped to be neutral, was instead hostile to everything. This may no longer be the case given the modifications to the AI this change would have necessitated, but it may still be beyond what the game can handle.
It just occurred to me, since I'm assuming (and you confirmed) three-way battles would be a pain code-wise, what if we could choose to assist one of the hostile factions? As in after you click their battle you have a choice to [Assist X Faction] [Assist Y Faction]
Then they'd be neutral to you in that battle I guess but turn hostile if you open fire to any of their ships. It'd make for a nice way to get some rep points with hostile factions since getting those are incredibly difficult and perhaps this might be a good new option. Of course we could also have some limitations, like not being able to assists fleets with the upper hand or having a hate level above "hostile" that would deny even actions like this.
As far as 3+ side battles - yeah, it's just too much of a pain code-wise. I also think it's one of those things that sounds like more fun that it would be in practice. The "right" AI behavior would be to play defensively; anything else would just open it up to player abuse. I mean, the whole idea behind what makes it sound fun is basically abusing the hell out of the AI. Those things are fun for a bit but lose their luster longer term, and take away from the game overall.
As far as helping a hostile faction: in-world-logic wise, in that scenario, neither faction would trust you to help. In game design terms, I think it'd cause problems where, you know, you might decide to take out a bunch of your "allies" by "accident". You know, pretty much the reason neither faction would trust you to help in the first place. And if they turn hostile to you if you start doing that, then we're back to the 3-fleet thing. It's just super messy for what feels like, at least to me, ultimately dubious reasons.
Nuts 'n bolts questions:
- How do allies interact with the FP/logistics limit for ships in a single battle? Do they share a common cap?
Same cap, which is the same as for normal battles. Allies will leave you some points to deploy, to a minimum of your flagship, and more if your fleet is comparatively large.
- Say an NPC-NPC battle takes two days. Joining at 1.99 days is functionally the same as joining right at the start, I take it?
Not exactly, since at least one autoresolve round will have happened by then.
Unrelated thought: Officer portrait above the flux/CR bar on every ship looks like clutter, at least judging from the screenshot. They tell you there's an officer on board, but unless you remember which face is which officer it doesn't seem like they communicate more info than that (like the key "what combat skills will this ship have?")
Could ships instead get a "has officer" icon, with the portrait only on targeted ships and in places like the ship info card?
This shot is particularly officer-rich. It doesn't feel cluttered in practice, at least so far. The main thing the icon communicates, aside from the fact that an officer is on board, is the officer's level - which is a very good indicator of their overall strength. I did think about showing this only for targeted ships, but it's just too important a piece of information not to have up at all times. But I guess what you're suggesting would still do that, just with a smaller and different icon. Hmm. I think I like the portraits better - they look nice, convey more information if you *do* recognize the officer, and are more intuitive than a "hey, what IS that icon" that a different - and smaller - icon would be.
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Super excited! :D
One thing I've always liked about the Total War series is when allies join in, it's from their relative direction on the map, making it possible to deploy forces on the side (or to the rear) onto the map. Something like that here might spice things up/offer tactical, time based choices.
Also regarding fleets raiding, perhaps we could have an initial combat choice of "attempt quick strike" which would deploy only your fleet and the contacted enemy fleet on a very tight map and you have a very short amount of time to defeat the enemy or their nearby reinforcements appear on top of you and with some beacons captured. Would offer the ability for a pirate fleet to do a risky quick strike on a freighter fleet among defensive fleets.
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Alright, as per usual of me, I completely ignore the entire point of the blog post and my eyes automatically zip to the screenshots and pick them apart. And I've found some novel-looking Enforcers and Lasher in two of them. Looks like Hegemony-colored Enforcers and Lashers - which is nice. :)
Seems like most of my questions were already answered due to my lateness (most of the edge-case things like the being able to use allied carriers or if player battles take time, etc.), so I'll sit this one out until I think of something new.
Also: this has got the be the biggest update since the campaign got added, if not bigger than that itself. Wonder what kind of media attention it'll get - I could see TotalBiscuit doing yet another video on this game.
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:)
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Seems like chain-battling can make a comeback, and I do not need to spend CR for every last fleet I want to fight, if enemies keep joining the first fight.
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I could see TotalBiscuit doing yet another video on this game.
Unlikely. The best he'd do is stream it. If he does another video it will be upon 1.0 release.
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Terrain and multi-fleet battles are going to give combat some good variety.
Alright, as per usual of me, I completely ignore the entire point of the blog post and my eyes automatically zip to the screenshots and pick them apart. And I've found some novel-looking Enforcers and Lasher in two of them. Looks like Hegemony-colored Enforcers and Lashers - which is nice. :)
I wonder if there will be more skins for other factions too (hopefully). All in all i'm even more hyped for the new update.
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Unfortunately it might be prevented by practical concerns regarding the AI. Modding experiments with adding additional sides resulted in some issues, though it's been long enough that about the only thing I recall was the side 3 ship, which if memory serves was hoped to be neutral, was instead hostile to everything. This may no longer be the case given the modifications to the AI this change would have necessitated, but it may still be beyond what the game can handle.
As far as 3+ side battles - yeah, it's just too much of a pain code-wise. I also think it's one of those things that sounds like more fun that it would be in practice. The "right" AI behavior would be to play defensively; anything else would just open it up to player abuse. I mean, the whole idea behind what makes it sound fun is basically abusing the hell out of the AI. Those things are fun for a bit but lose their luster longer term, and take away from the game overall.
As far as helping a hostile faction: in-world-logic wise, in that scenario, neither faction would trust you to help. In game design terms, I think it'd cause problems where, you know, you might decide to take out a bunch of your "allies" by "accident". You know, pretty much the reason neither faction would trust you to help in the first place. And if they turn hostile to you if you start doing that, then we're back to the 3-fleet thing. It's just super messy for what feels like, at least to me, ultimately dubious reasons.
Fair enough, can't wait for the update.
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Oh yeah! :)
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I've mentioned it in a suggestion many moons ago, but the way I would handle campaign time passing for player battles would be to have it pass between when they choose their option (battle, retreat, etc.) and when the battle, escape battle, etc. actually begin.
You click battle, a day or two goes by, giving nearby fleets a chance to join, then the battle happens instantly campaign-time-wise.
This would be the best way to handle this situation, so engaging a fleet also ties in with sensor information gameplay. Also there could be skills / ship mods etc that ties in with this time.
Otherwise it just goes back to picking fleet off one by one if the AI join range is too small, and if its too large it would also be quite annoying.
This shot is particularly officer-rich. It doesn't feel cluttered in practice, at least so far. The main thing the icon communicates, aside from the fact that an officer is on board, is the officer's level - which is a very good indicator of their overall strength. I did think about showing this only for targeted ships, but it's just too important a piece of information not to have up at all times. But I guess what you're suggesting would still do that, just with a smaller and different icon. Hmm. I think I like the portraits better - they look nice, convey more information if you *do* recognize the officer, and are more intuitive than a "hey, what IS that icon" that a different - and smaller - icon would be.
Also a suggestion, the portrait should be placed BELOW the flux and hull bars this way it is much less in the way.
I suppose we will also be getting much more officer portraits?
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Also a suggestion, the portrait should be placed BELOW the flux and hull bars this way it is much less in the way.
Tried that, actually! It felt more in the way because it was covering up part of the ship more often.
I suppose we will also be getting much more officer portraits?
I think there's a couple more; David's been re-working a lot of these to have an improved and coherent style. It's a gradual process, but over time, yes, definitely.
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I come home to this... Good gods YEEESSSSSSSSS~!
Yess yess yess~! AND YES TILL MY GUTS FLY OUT~!!!
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Are allies supported in missions, or is this campaign only for now?
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Blog post here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2015/10/02/expanded-battles/).
Holy balls. :P
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I suppose we will also be getting much more officer portraits?
I think there's a couple more; David's been re-working a lot of these to have an improved and coherent style. It's a gradual process, but over time, yes, definitely.
Will different factions have like officer portraits more specifically tailored for them? Or perhaps a certain design style to ones that would convey some idea of what type of officer they are, or would something like that just possibly be too much work currently? Even something as simple as an icon at the top left that maybe designated where most of their points are spent unless this is information you would rather be withheld and unknown to the player.
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Unrelated thought: Officer portrait above the flux/CR bar on every ship looks like clutter, at least judging from the screenshot. They tell you there's an officer on board, but unless you remember which face is which officer it doesn't seem like they communicate more info than that (like the key "what combat skills will this ship have?")
Could ships instead get a "has officer" icon, with the portrait only on targeted ships and in places like the ship info card?
This shot is particularly officer-rich. It doesn't feel cluttered in practice, at least so far. The main thing the icon communicates, aside from the fact that an officer is on board, is the officer's level - which is a very good indicator of their overall strength. I did think about showing this only for targeted ships, but it's just too important a piece of information not to have up at all times. But I guess what you're suggesting would still do that, just with a smaller and different icon. Hmm. I think I like the portraits better - they look nice, convey more information if you *do* recognize the officer, and are more intuitive than a "hey, what IS that icon" that a different - and smaller - icon would be.
I actually agree with Histidine on this one. The portrait won't be too bothersome in small, mid/long range engagements. However it will definitely clutter the screen in big, close-quarter brawls against the enemy fleet. Hell, if it can hide missiles, even for a quarter of a second, it'll possibly be annoying. Just have a "lvl 9" above the flux bar is pretty explicit and not as distracting, and you can still have the portrait by targeting someone to maybe recognize that dude you want dead.
Overall, very awesome new mechanic. I'm a bit saddened by the lack of possible 3 way battle with several factions in a big battle-royal. But as you said, the player would have too much of an advantage in the confusion (but goddamn would that be fun!). However, does it still works if you have a fourth party joining in, but at the side of someone else? Like, Hegemony/player vs pirates/luddic church or even 3 vs 1? I can already imagine big, coalitions battle lasting a few weeks with everyone in the sector joining the brawl.
Oh, and can we take selfies with the tripad? #nofilter #like4supplies #threesomewithsindrian
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The tripad will look great when the widget above it gets some polish... Also, now that the difficulty scale is being smoothed out, you should consider turning off half damage taken by default. The more people get used to playing with 50% damage, the more confusion it would create in discussions, balance feedback and whatnot. Potentially an annoying thing when you start pushing SS for a wider audience and our "eternal september" begins. Whenever I introduced someone to the game, I told them to turn that off and they never had any issue with the game's difficulty, provided I gave them some basic piloting tips to smooth out the initial learning curve. The danger is in the "sudden death" factor of forgetting to turn off shields or eating finisher missiles, but the way I see it, the rate at which 100% damage makes you a better pilot justifies the initial punishment.
IMO leave it in, just don't have it on be default. Mention it at the end of the tutorial or at some convenient point, so that players are aware it exists. What I dislike is the idea of someone playing for a long time and not realizing they are playing with 50% damage.
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IMO leave it in, just don't have it on be default. Mention it at the end of the tutorial or at some convenient point, so that players are aware it exists. What I dislike is the idea of someone playing for a long time and not realizing they are playing with 50% damage.
That was me. I only realized that, after much playing, when I figured out why a perfect mission score is only 50% instead of 100%.
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I'm excited by this blog post, and I've only read about 1 paragraph, lol. This is one of the Mount and Blade features that SS has really always needed, imo.
[EDIT]I have only one major question... how does this effect AI, specifically the Commander AI and AI teams in general? I know that sides 0-1 were always supported, and 99 was basically reserved for Neutral in this kind of thing... is 2 equivalent to 0 and 3 equivalent to 1? Just asking because I have that AI port I did (but haven't released yet) to get my AI working w/ Vanilla.
[/EDIT]
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I'm excited by this blog post, and I've only read about 1 paragraph, lol. This is one of the Mount and Blade features that SS has really always needed, imo.
[EDIT]I have only one major question... how does this effect AI, specifically the Commander AI and AI teams in general? I know that sides 0-1 were always supported, and 99 was basically reserved for Neutral in this kind of thing... is 2 equivalent to 0 and 3 equivalent to 1? Just asking because I have that AI port I did (but haven't released yet) to get my AI working w/ Vanilla.
[/EDIT]
The battles are still two sided with 0 and 1, but some ships now have a "isAllied" flag
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Reputation and loot are reduced by what fraction (under the hood, in terms of fleet points) the player's fleet is of the overall forces, at the start of the battle. Likewise for bounty rewards; you'll only get a share and not the full bounty.
Two concerns with this:
- Imagine the player can deploy only a little at the beginning, but then the ally loses some ships so the player deploys reinforcements and carries the bulk of the combat. Wouldn't the loot/reputation distribution be totally skewed?
- Isn't the optimal strategy when fighting with an ally to hold back your forces in a corner and use the allied ships as cannon fodder?
Two ideas to address that:
- Why not use the total of deployed FP at the end of the battle as the basis for calculations?
-Maybe it would be possible to take out a percentage of the winnings as compensation for any ship your ally (or you) lost. That way you have interest in the survival of your ally's ships and no incentive to hold back. And a good reason to avoid friendly fire.
Will different factions have like officer portraits more specifically tailored for them?
That's more or less the case already, there are specific hegemony, corporate and mercenary officer portraits.
Even something as simple as an icon at the top left that maybe designated where most of their points are spent unless this is information you would rather be withheld and unknown to the player.
Maybe a colored level number that indicates the main aptitude (red=combat, green=leadership, blue=technology).
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I was thinking. Instead of officer portraits, which are by design fairly large and when you downscale them heavily, they're hard to make out - why not add a handful of distinctive, 20x20 px banners? These could be tied to portraits, with each getting its own, or completely unrelated and just used to tell apart units in the field. Maybe in the pre-battle interface you'd have a shot with each participant and which banner belongs to who. You could even take it a step further and have no pictures at all. Just colour-coded allies in the blue-green-yellow ranges, with enemies in the brown-red-magenta range.
Officer portraits aren't all made with the goal to look 100% distinctive, so with that in mind they don't serve that role the best on the battlefield.
Also delayed reinforcements by armies that are further away on the strategic view would be super cool. It wouldn't have to run the world in real time - just give everything after a certain distance threshold X (depending on distance) seconds spawn delay.
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Silly question: What happens if you join as an ally, then kill your allies (or everyone)? I smell exploit if I there are no consequences for deliberate friendly fire. (Back when losing your ships gave experience, I shot my ships to convert them to XP.)
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Silly question: What happens if you join as an ally, then kill your allies (or everyone)? I smell exploit if I there are no consequences for deliberate friendly fire. (Back when losing your ships gave experience, I shot my ships to convert them to XP.)
ahh ninja'd
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Silly question: What happens if you join as an ally, then kill your allies (or everyone)? I smell exploit if I there are no consequences for deliberate friendly fire. (Back when losing your ships gave experience, I shot my ships to convert them to XP.)
Right now, nothing. Of note: salvage and bounty split is based on fleet sizes pre combat, so at least that's not a reason to shove anti-matter blasters up a firendly ship's tailpipe.
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Will different factions have like officer portraits more specifically tailored for them? Or perhaps a certain design style to ones that would convey some idea of what type of officer they are, or would something like that just possibly be too much work currently? Even something as simple as an icon at the top left that maybe designated where most of their points are spent unless this is information you would rather be withheld and unknown to the player.
Most of what I've done is upgrade existing portraits. I'm now (re)drawing them at 512x512 then downsizing rather than drawing them directly at 128x128.
I would like to do more portraits unique to factions. I did add a few generics and Tri-Tachyon got a couple more uniques. The Luddic factions in particular could use more unique portraits but that won't be happening for this particular patch.
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Most of what I've done is upgrade existing portraits. I'm now (re)drawing them at 512x512 then downsizing rather than drawing them directly at 128x128.
I would like to do more portraits unique to factions. I did add a few generics and Tri-Tachyon got a couple more uniques. The Luddic factions in particular could use more unique portraits but that won't be happening for this particular patch.
Ah, very nice. Yeah, I was thinking that if there were some officer portraits that tended to be more unique to a faction that they could be ones that might stand out more during gameplay rather than some of the generic officers that you might see in many fleets. Y'know, something like main fleet commanders for some factions so you could more easily tell if you might be facing the cream of the crop or just some generic everyday officers that came from any backwater world that faction went through.
The timing on when or if we get more of those matters not to me, as long as its in the works, since I've enjoyed your art style so far and will love having more of it in there.
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Are allies supported in missions, or is this campaign only for now?
Sort-of supported - you can set the isAlly() flag on the fleet members you add, but the mission code doesn't handle the new possible ending conditions, e.g. "you retreat before your allies do".
The tripad will look great when the widget above it gets some polish... Also, now that the difficulty scale is being smoothed out, you should consider turning off half damage taken by default. The more people get used to playing with 50% damage, the more confusion it would create in discussions, balance feedback and whatnot. Potentially an annoying thing when you start pushing SS for a wider audience and our "eternal september" begins. Whenever I introduced someone to the game, I told them to turn that off and they never had any issue with the game's difficulty, provided I gave them some basic piloting tips to smooth out the initial learning curve. The danger is in the "sudden death" factor of forgetting to turn off shields or eating finisher missiles, but the way I see it, the rate at which 100% damage makes you a better pilot justifies the initial punishment.
IMO leave it in, just don't have it on be default. Mention it at the end of the tutorial or at some convenient point, so that players are aware it exists. What I dislike is the idea of someone playing for a long time and not realizing they are playing with 50% damage.
Hmm. Something to think about, for sure - not 100% decided one way or another right now, but will consider it some more before the release. Thanks for bringing it up!
- Imagine the player can deploy only a little at the beginning, but then the ally loses some ships so the player deploys reinforcements and carries the bulk of the combat. Wouldn't the loot/reputation distribution be totally skewed?
Ahh, I didn't phrase that well. I mean that actual fleet size ratio, before combat even starts.
- Isn't the optimal strategy when fighting with an ally to hold back your forces in a corner and use the allied ships as cannon fodder?
If it's a stomp, then perhaps, but there's also not much reason to. If it's a tough fight, I'd imagine you'll have a much easier time fighting with your allies instead of waiting for them to die and fighting then. Still, it might make sense to look at what it'd take to track who made kills etc when distributing rewards; ther probably are some cases where hanging back makes sense, and that'd fix that up.
- Why not use the total of deployed FP at the end of the battle as the basis for calculations?
(At the moment, using pre-battle total to discourage intentional friendly fire.)
-Maybe it would be possible to take out a percentage of the winnings as compensation for any ship your ally (or you) lost. That way you have interest in the survival of your ally's ships and no incentive to hold back. And a good reason to avoid friendly fire.
Hmm. The issue with that, I think, is it further punishes you for barely winning a tough fight. That's already an F9 scenario for a lot of people; making it worse doesn't seem like the direction to go in.
Maybe a colored level number that indicates the main aptitude (red=combat, green=leadership, blue=technology).
Officers only pick from combat skills + gunnery implants, and only benefit from the effects that affect the piloted ship.
Silly question: What happens if you join as an ally, then kill your allies (or everyone)? I smell exploit if I there are no consequences for deliberate friendly fire. (Back when losing your ships gave experience, I shot my ships to convert them to XP.)
Right now, nothing. Of note: salvage and bounty split is based on fleet sizes pre combat, so at least that's not a reason to shove anti-matter blasters up a firendly ship's tailpipe.
To expand on that a bit more: I've got a TODO item to have extreme friendly fire vs allies have repercussions, but it's pretty low priority because atm I don't see what incentive the player might have to do that.
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I was gonna stay shy and hidden, but this update brings so many questions to mind, I need answers!
Would relation bonuses be attributed to the player if he come to help a allied fleet under attack? Specially trade fleets.
What happens if you turn on your ally and destroy them during the battle? do you get part of their fleets salvage and bounty on them?
If you attack a pirate, and a hostile fleet is nearby, will they help the pirates or will they ignore since pirates are hostile to them?
Edit: Well Seems like most was answered while I was typing this... TY Alex!! <3
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If you attack a pirate, and a hostile fleet is nearby, will they help the pirates or will they ignore since pirates are hostile to them?
If the other hostile fleet is allied with the pirates, then they can join in. If that hostile fleet is hostile to the pirates, then they can't join (since both factions are hostile to them).
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I've got a TODO item to have extreme friendly fire vs allies have repercussions, but it's pretty low priority because atm I don't see what incentive the player might have to do that.
What happens when you kill all allies (assuming all are deployed). No one to share the loot with means unshared loot, right? Sry for the (attempted ) hole poking ;D
-Maybe it would be possible to take out a percentage of the winnings as compensation for any ship your ally (or you) lost. That way you have interest in the survival of your ally's ships and no incentive to hold back. And a good reason to avoid friendly fire.
Hmm. The issue with that, I think, is it further punishes you for barely winning a tough fight. That's already an F9 scenario for a lot of people; making it worse doesn't seem like the direction to go in.
It would only punish the player if the AI ally took the majority of the losses, and actually reward (or rather compensate) you if most of the losses are yours.
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To expand on that a bit more: I've got a TODO item to have extreme friendly fire vs allies have repercussions, but it's pretty low priority because atm I don't see what incentive the player might have to do that.
Assuming that access to weapons remain the same (i.e., no blueprints or autofactories we can own), I seriously consider killing anything that can drop rare weapons such as Light Needlers. Very powerful, very rare, can never find enough for all of my ships.
Or simply more loot to take if I am greedy, if I can haul it all. I see allies as a source of loot to take from if killing them incurs no penalty. In other words, the way to attack friendly fleets is to wait until they fight an enemy, join as an ally, then kill everyone.
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What about neutrality? I'm guessing that a neutral fleet that sees an encounter will not get involved unless friendly with one of them?
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Another silly question: Are disabled ally ships eligible for boarding? If so, that is another reason to kill allies. Ally fleet has Hyperion? Join as ally and kill it!
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If you attack a pirate, and a hostile fleet is nearby, will they help the pirates or will they ignore since pirates are hostile to them?
If the other hostile fleet is allied with the pirates, then they can join in. If that hostile fleet is hostile to the pirates, then they can't join (since both factions are hostile to them).
Correct!
I've got a TODO item to have extreme friendly fire vs allies have repercussions, but it's pretty low priority because atm I don't see what incentive the player might have to do that.
What happens when you kill all allies (assuming all are deployed). No one to share the loot with means unshared loot, right? Sry for the (attempted ) hole poking ;D
You still don't get their stuff. Logical hole poked; mechanics remain airtight.
-Maybe it would be possible to take out a percentage of the winnings as compensation for any ship your ally (or you) lost. That way you have interest in the survival of your ally's ships and no incentive to hold back. And a good reason to avoid friendly fire.
Hmm. The issue with that, I think, is it further punishes you for barely winning a tough fight. That's already an F9 scenario for a lot of people; making it worse doesn't seem like the direction to go in.
It would only punish the player if the AI ally took the majority of the losses, and actually reward (or rather compensate) you if most of the losses are yours.
I'm not understanding what you're proposing, then - "take out a percentage of the winnings as compensation for any ship your ally (or you) lost" sounds like less loot if you suffered more losses.
To expand on that a bit more: I've got a TODO item to have extreme friendly fire vs allies have repercussions, but it's pretty low priority because atm I don't see what incentive the player might have to do that.
Assuming that access to weapons remain the same (i.e., no blueprints or autofactories we can own), I seriously consider killing anything that can drop rare weapons such as Light Needlers. Very powerful, very rare, can never find enough for all of my ships.
Or simply more loot to take if I am greedy, if I can haul it all. I see allies as a source of loot to take from if killing them incurs no penalty. In other words, the way to attack friendly fleets is to wait until they fight an enemy, join as an ally, then kill everyone.
Ah, good call - this is actually something I overlooked; wasn't thinking that salvage drops from your casualties, but of course it does. Adjusted so that you get no salvage from disabled allied ships, and the salvage from your own disabled ships isn't reduced by the presence of allies.
What about neutrality? I'm guessing that a neutral fleet that sees an encounter will not get involved unless friendly with one of them?
Right, exactly. There are a few more complexities here, e.g. trade fleets won't help anyone, patrols are more likely to help fleets that aren't of their faction, etc.
Another silly question: Are disabled ally ships eligible for boarding? If so, that is another reason to kill allies. Ally fleet has Hyperion? Join as ally and kill it!
They're not, and actually, I took boarding out entirely for the moment. It mostly seems like a save-load encourager at the moment, with the frustration of it not really worth the benefits. I'd like to eventually bring it back when the larger context for it shapes up and it's more clear how to make it good. I think it's going to take more finalized mechanics for ship availability before that happens.
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actually, I took boarding out entirely for the moment. It mostly seems like a save-load encourager at the moment, with the frustration of it not really worth the benefits. I'd like to eventually bring it back when the larger context for it shapes up and it's more clear how to make it good. I think it's going to take more finalized mechanics for ship availability before that happens.
Oh, wow. Okay. I get that the mechanic is not functioning as intended within the larger meta, but could it be left in, at least as a configurable option somewhere? I'm having a ton of fun playing with the Starsector Plus settings Rare Ships (very few ships in markets, uncommon ships now extremely hard to find), Expensive Ships (2.5x normal price, effects weapons too IIRC), and Easier Boarding (exactly what it says) on; I build a fleet out of what I can capture, and I have a ton of fun flying very heterogeneous fleets this way with ships I wouldn't normally use.
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I'm not understanding what you're proposing, then - "take out a percentage of the winnings as compensation for any ship your ally (or you) lost" sounds like less loot if you suffered more losses.
Sorry for being unclear. I meant the ally that had more losses gets a compensation, and this compensation is taken out of the winnings of the ally that had fewer losses. So if you let many of your ally's ships die you pay him for that (with a percentage of your loot) and vise versa.
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Alex, seems as if the Megas has created a whole new series of edge cases, heh.
Speaking of boarding ships - I feel like almost every ship disabled in battle should be eligible for boarding. If you take a look at tank casualties in WWII, nearly every tank disabled in combat could have been recovered (unless the magazine caught fire, or the engine had burned out) since all you had to do was patch up the holes and stuff in a new crew. Sure, it's not really WWII-era ships, but it's similar in nature. Hell, even in the Age of Sail, ships often boarded each other as captain veiwed this as a more effective way of combat rather than trying to sink the other ship (not just to get the loot held within, but it usually did less damage to both ships as well. But, this isn't after-battle boarding, but I felt it was close enough).
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actually, I took boarding out entirely for the moment. It mostly seems like a save-load encourager at the moment, with the frustration of it not really worth the benefits. I'd like to eventually bring it back when the larger context for it shapes up and it's more clear how to make it good. I think it's going to take more finalized mechanics for ship availability before that happens.
Oh, wow. Okay. I get that the mechanic is not functioning as intended within the larger meta, but could it be left in, at least as a configurable option somewhere? I'm having a ton of fun playing with the Starsector Plus settings Rare Ships (very few ships in markets, uncommon ships now extremely hard to find), Expensive Ships (2.5x normal price, effects weapons too IIRC), and Easier Boarding (exactly what it says) on; I build a fleet out of what I can capture, and I have a ton of fun flying very heterogeneous fleets this way with ships I wouldn't normally use.
Hmm. Yeah, alright - part of the reason for taking it out was, well, not wanting to recode it for the "with allies" scenarios, but that didn't turn out to be so bad. It's back in :)
I'm not understanding what you're proposing, then - "take out a percentage of the winnings as compensation for any ship your ally (or you) lost" sounds like less loot if you suffered more losses.
Sorry for being unclear. I meant the ally that had more losses gets a compensation, and this compensation is taken out of the winnings of the ally that had fewer losses. So if you let many of your ally's ships die you pay him for that (with a percentage of your loot) and vise versa.
Ah, I see. That'd work, but something based on getting kills seems like it might be more intuitive. To be honest, I'm inclined to leave it as-is for the moment and see if "hanging back being ideal" is an actual problem that needs solving before, well, trying to solve it.
Alex, seems as if the Megas has created a whole new series of edge cases, heh.
Less creating and more spotting, but yeah, he's pretty good at that :)
Speaking of boarding ships - I feel like almost every ship disabled in battle should be eligible for boarding. If you take a look at tank casualties in WWII, nearly every tank disabled in combat could have been recovered (unless the magazine caught fire, or the engine had burned out) since all you had to do was patch up the holes and stuff in a new crew. Sure, it's not really WWII-era ships, but it's similar in nature. Hell, even in the Age of Sail, ships often boarded each other as captain veiwed this as a more effective way of combat rather than trying to sink the other ship (not just to get the loot held within, but it usually did less damage to both ships as well. But, this isn't after-battle boarding, but I felt it was close enough).
I see where you're coming from realism-wise, although ships seem like they'd be pretty different from tanks, and I'd imagine they have a lot more delicate systems that wouldn't stand up well to being exploded. But I think that's neither here nor there in terms of what makes sense design-wise.
The current idea behind boarding is to give you access to ships that you wouldn't have access to otherwise, but not to be a way of acquiring ships at a lower cost than buying them normally. The current implementation more or less does the job - you'll take enough damage assorted damage from failed attempts to make it cost more - but it's also frustrating. When looking for a new implementation, I think it'll make sense to look at first what role boarding needs to play, and then what mechanics makes sense given that. Starting from the premise of "every disabled ship should be boardable" seems like putting the cart before the horse there.
Part of the problem is the role of boarding isn't communicated to the player, and the way to figure out that hey, maybe I shouldn't try to board that Lasher, is to fail at it multiple times. An alternative approach might be something like super low odds to board something, with near-guaranteed success - that'd be a more intuitive "uuu, shiny drop" kind of mechanic, but wouldn't fill the same role. All of which to is to say I want to finalize more stuff before taking another look at it.
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I'm not understanding what you're proposing, then - "take out a percentage of the winnings as compensation for any ship your ally (or you) lost" sounds like less loot if you suffered more losses.
Sorry for being unclear. I meant the ally that had more losses gets a compensation, and this compensation is taken out of the winnings of the ally that had fewer losses. So if you let many of your ally's ships die you pay him for that (with a percentage of your loot) and vise versa.
Maybe it would be worth going even further than that and not splitting loot around the pre-battle FP at all (witch would create a weird playstyle: I'd fly a huge fleet of freighters, deploy all then retreat them keeping only a Lasher in the rear and cash on the loot) but only around the amount of FP lost in the battle: That would force the player to actually protect it's allies, and above all, NOT shoot them. Okay, to avoid it being a pain the split might need to be a non-linear ratio or have a floor like 15/85... Since if I understood well, the more FP you have when you join, the less the AI deploy its ships, that could be self balancing.
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With good boarding mechanics boarding might work as the primary way to gain ships, at least early on and for rare ships. It would require buying ships to be much less cost effective; "You want that Hyperion? 20 million credits." That's a big, complicated idea with a lot of ramifications though, and I don't feel like trying to think about it – just throwing out the possibility.
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I see where you're coming from realism-wise, although ships seem like they'd be pretty different from tanks, and I'd imagine they have a lot more delicate systems that wouldn't stand up well to being exploded. But I think that's neither here nor there in terms of what makes sense design-wise.
The current idea behind boarding is to give you access to ships that you wouldn't have access to otherwise, but not to be a way of acquiring ships at a lower cost than buying them normally. The current implementation more or less does the job - you'll take enough damage assorted damage from failed attempts to make it cost more - but it's also frustrating. When looking for a new implementation, I think it'll make sense to look at first what role boarding needs to play, and then what mechanics makes sense given that. Starting from the premise of "every disabled ship should be boardable" seems like putting the cart before the horse there.
Part of the problem is the role of boarding isn't communicated to the player, and the way to figure out that hey, maybe I shouldn't try to board that Lasher, is to fail at it multiple times. An alternative approach might be something like super low odds to board something, with near-guaranteed success - that'd be a more intuitive "uuu, shiny drop" kind of mechanic, but wouldn't fill the same role. All of which to is to say I want to finalize more stuff before taking another look at it.
I suppose I should follow this up (or rather, should have said in the first place) that having a complete rework of the ship disable mechanic would be needed for that. Put simply, a ship can be considered disabled if enough of the supporting components of s ship are disabled or destroyed. It's not always just detonating the ammunition magazine that knocks out a ship (which is what SS seems to have right now). I'll let your mind work the rest out since this isn't a suggestions thread. Maybe it'll get some consideration. :)
But yea, the boarding mechanic was a bit messy and I understand why you've removed it for the moment.
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Ah, I see. That'd work, but something based on getting kills seems like it might be more intuitive. To be honest, I'm inclined to leave it as-is for the moment and see if "hanging back being ideal" is an actual problem that needs solving before, well, trying to solve it.
Kill-counting would be preferable of course, I just assumed it would be way more complicated :)
Could actually be awesome, since it would (potentially) allow a playstile where you wander around as a powerful lonely wolf (Hyperion?), joining epic battles and delivering killing blows to get a big part of the spoils.
Thinking of that, a "impromptu mercenary mechanic" would be interesting, where you can pay nearby non-allied fleets to join a battle on your side. Or get a monetary offer to join an ongoing battle.
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Put simply, a ship can be considered disabled if enough of the supporting components of s ship are disabled or destroyed. It's not always just detonating the ammunition magazine that knocks out a ship (which is what SS seems to have right now).
I always thought that it was the reactor going critical. Besides, were would the "ammo dump" be for high tech ships?
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Thinking of that, a "impromptu mercenary mechanic" would be interesting, where you can pay nearby non-allied fleets to join a battle on your side. Or get a monetary offer to join an ongoing battle.
Or even something where you pay a mercenary fleet to follow you around for a month, joining in battles if needed. Some interesting potential here!
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I think that this could be really fun also as a mining mechanic- you "start a battle" with a bunch of asteroids/salvageable hulks, using the mining laser makes resources/hull components pop out, you can pick them up with your ship. Random pirates and patrols enter and exit periodically and give you a hard time. Fun, right?
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Thinking of that, a "impromptu mercenary mechanic" would be interesting, where you can pay nearby non-allied fleets to join a battle on your side. Or get a monetary offer to join an ongoing battle.
Oh, yea. Very interesting stuff, and Alex seems to show some interest - I think he likes it. :D
I always thought that it was the reactor going critical. Besides, were would the "ammo dump" be for high tech ships?
It could be the reactor or it could be the magazine - either way, the ship blows up every time, which isn't necessarily something that should happen every time.
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I think that this could be really fun also as a mining mechanic- you "start a battle" with a bunch of asteroids/salvageable hulks, using the mining laser makes resources/hull components pop out, you can pick them up with your ship. Random pirates and patrols enter and exit periodically and give you a hard time. Fun, right?
Sorry but I don't find this fun, it sound like the definition of grinding. I'd rather have something similar to Nexerelin, with a burn debuf if you have to flee in an emergency, and a CR cost for the ships doing the mining.
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I always just took the ship explosions as a gamey way to very clearly communicate that a foe has been vanquished. The explosions could be caused by something different each time. I'd still love it for sinking ships (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8476.0) to make it into the game, though.
BTW, I can see campaign abilities playing into this. For example a communication disruption ability that decreases the range at which fleets can support each other.
This might be a little more complexity in interactions than you want to do, but I'd like to be able to say, "hey my Medusa could swing this battle either way, what do each of you bid for me to decide I'm on your side?" This should generate a pretty severe reputation hit even from the guys you help, but if I'm playing as loyal to the Hegemony, I have no reason to care what Tri-Tach or the pirates think of me, and if I see a battle between a Tri-Tach fleet and a pirate fleet I'd sure try to take maximum advantage of it.
Thinking further in that direction, it might open up the gate for non-deadly piracy. Once you have fleets offering money for participation in battle, why not traders offering money for not participating in battle - with them. I never liked having to kill all those sailors for a little loot.
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If it's a stomp, then perhaps, but there's also not much reason to. If it's a tough fight, I'd imagine you'll have a much easier time fighting with your allies instead of waiting for them to die and fighting then. Still, it might make sense to look at what it'd take to track who made kills etc when distributing rewards; there probably are some cases where hanging back makes sense, and that'd fix that up.
I think tracking involvement by damage dealt would probably be preferable to kills as otherwise you'd get annoyed by kill-steals from NPCs. Basing it on kills would also make hanging back only to snipe nearly-dead targets at the last minute the optimal strategy, which might be interesting at low levels I guess? (E.g. a Heavy Blaster Wolf would be good training wheels in these circumstances as at least you're forced to engage a bit).
E: I guess then you have edge cases of 'it takes much less damage to kill a Hyperion than a Mule' but...
Contribution score = (Damage / HP) * FP cost of thing damaged would fix that, if necessary?
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The current idea behind boarding is to give you access to ships that you wouldn't have access to otherwise, but not to be a way of acquiring ships at a lower cost than buying them normally. The current implementation more or less does the job - you'll take enough damage assorted damage from failed attempts to make it cost more - but it's also frustrating. When looking for a new implementation, I think it'll make sense to look at first what role boarding needs to play, and then what mechanics makes sense given that. Starting from the premise of "every disabled ship should be boardable" seems like putting the cart before the horse there.
Part of the problem is the role of boarding isn't communicated to the player, and the way to figure out that hey, maybe I shouldn't try to board that Lasher, is to fail at it multiple times. An alternative approach might be something like super low odds to board something, with near-guaranteed success - that'd be a more intuitive "uuu, shiny drop" kind of mechanic, but wouldn't fill the same role. All of which to is to say I want to finalize more stuff before taking another look at it.
Going a bit off topic, but: If a boarded ship is broken-down enough (increased hull repair costs, D hullmods, and/or you might even have to to some work on it to use it in combat at all), the costs to reverse the damage could thin the margin between buying and boarding pretty quickly.
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Who is awesome? You are Alex. You are.
We've been trying to mod three way battles into the game forever and day, glad to see it finally in the game. I have some cool plans for this already.
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We've been trying to mod three way battles into the game forever and day, glad to see it finally in the game. I have some cool plans for this already.
Technically, it's not a three-way battle. It's a two-way battle with allied units involved; if I haven't missed anything or misinterpreted something, you need to be nonhostile to one of the participants and nonfriendly to the other in order to join an ongoing battle, and the same is true for groups which might join a battle you initiate. You're not going to see fights involving three or more fleets where there are three distinct sides (i.e. if three fleets are involved, two have to be allied; you cannot have each fleet fight both of the other fleets).
To Alex: are you intending to add missions that make use of this mechanic, or revise existing missions to make use of this mechanic if such would make sense? Oh, and could we get a different color for the allied units? I think the yellow used for allied units is a bit too close to the green used for the ships the player owns; perhaps blue would work better? Or perhaps stick the friend/foe/ally colors into the options menu with a few predetermined options, so the player can configure it themselves?
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Yeah, this isn't three-way. As far as the combat layer is concerned, all this does is have some ships on the player's side that the player can't control.
Alex, how do allies get implemented for the enemy side? Is it just added into one big fleet? Do separate commander AIs run their ships? If not, do the CP get added together?
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Alex, how do allies get implemented for the enemy side? Is it just added into one big fleet? Do separate commander AIs run their ships? If not, do the CP get added together?
Taking into consideration the code that is this:
FleetMemberAPI.isAlly()
I think the original fleet will have it's own commander AI, but all other helping fleets part of the AI will be run under a single commander regardless of how many other helping fleets there are. If I've predicted that right, yay! :)
And I agree with Aseon, the yellow is a bit too close of a color for yellow. Maybe make it a blue or dark green, it needs to stand out more when on the battlefield alone. The fact that the allied ships have a circular selection area when you see them on the campaign map is nice, though.
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I think the yellow looks quite different.
However, people with most sorts of color-weakness or color-blindness will disagree.
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I think the yellow looks quite different.
However, people with most sorts of color-weakness or color-blindness will disagree.
agreed, the yellow looks fine to me, but many people have problems distinguishing green from yellow at a glance, especially when both are at low saturation, like in this ui. and blue is probably a bad idea because much of the ui / background itself is a light blue.
what about a pink-ish purple? it might not be the most intuitive color for "ally", but i think neither is yellow. and it should provide good contrast to both the player's green and the hostile's rusty orange.
although ultimately all three parties can still be distinguished solely on the square, rhombus and circle shapes, even for people who wouldn't be able to see colors at all.
also, hello forum!^^
been lurking for some time, finally decided to actually post. so excited for the coming update! :]
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Well yellow has been the long industry standard for allies in rts games.
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Alright, as per usual of me, I completely ignore the entire point of the blog post and my eyes automatically zip to the screenshots and pick them apart. And I've found some novel-looking Enforcers and Lasher in two of them. Looks like Hegemony-colored Enforcers and Lashers - which is nice. :)
This is kind of far back, but I just noticed a new looking ship in the first screenshot. Second row of the pirate fleet all the way to the right.
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That's the new frigate (http://fractalsoftworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/kite.jpg) David showed in his "Trouble with Greeble" blog post.
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This is kind of far back, but I just noticed a new looking ship in the first screenshot. Second row of the pirate fleet all the way to the right.
Yea, I noticed it too, but I agreed with Tart that it looks like the same ship that David posted and thus has been discovered before. :)
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This is kind of far back, but I just noticed a new looking ship in the first screenshot. Second row of the pirate fleet all the way to the right.
Yea, I noticed it too, but I agreed with Tart that it looks like the same ship that David posted and thus has been discovered before. :)
On that topic that looks like the front end of a ship... A larger body it might be attached to.
*tinfoil on*
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Going a bit off topic, but: If a boarded ship is broken-down enough (increased hull repair costs, D hullmods, and/or you might even have to to some work on it to use it in combat at all), the costs to reverse the damage could thin the margin between buying and boarding pretty quickly.
That's a very good point, will keep it in mind.
To Alex: are you intending to add missions that make use of this mechanic, or revise existing missions to make use of this mechanic if such would make sense? Oh, and could we get a different color for the allied units? I think the yellow used for allied units is a bit too close to the green used for the ships the player owns; perhaps blue would work better? Or perhaps stick the friend/foe/ally colors into the options menu with a few predetermined options, so the player can configure it themselves?
Not for this update, at least. As I mentioned in an earlier reply, it's not 100% supported in missions - it mostly works, but some of the battle-end conditions (i.e. "you retreated but your allies haven't" aren't being handled properly.
Alex, how do allies get implemented for the enemy side? Is it just added into one big fleet? Do separate commander AIs run their ships? If not, do the CP get added together?
One big fleet, isAlly() returns false on all ships, one admiral AI in charge using the CPs of the commander of the "primary" fleet, which is either the first fleet on that side in the battle, or the largest fleet if that one is not present.
I think the yellow looks quite different.
However, people with most sorts of color-weakness or color-blindness will disagree.
agreed, the yellow looks fine to me, but many people have problems distinguishing green from yellow at a glance, especially when both are at low saturation, like in this ui. and blue is probably a bad idea because much of the ui / background itself is a light blue.
what about a pink-ish purple? it might not be the most intuitive color for "ally", but i think neither is yellow. and it should provide good contrast to both the player's green and the hostile's rusty orange.
although ultimately all three parties can still be distinguished solely on the square, rhombus and circle shapes, even for people who wouldn't be able to see colors at all.
Well yellow has been the long industry standard for allies in rts games.
Right - it's standard, also distinguishable by shape, and there's text ("allied" on the reticle) where the shape doesn't show up. In color-blind mode, it uses gray instead.
also, hello forum!^^
been lurking for some time, finally decided to actually post. so excited for the coming update! :]
Hi, and welcome to the forum :)
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Regarding boarding, an idea could be to make it a lot more "guaranteed", but you get a ruined but towable hulk that can either be scrapped for cash or restored over a few days at a friendly shipyard for a significant sum (like, 0.8*hullcost, pay more if you dont want to risk ending up with a D-variant or something), alternatively a slower supply based restoration in your fleet if you have construction rigs in your fleet.
What would be really fabulous would be if I could ram my valkyrie into an enemy ship and enter a top down boarding minigame though, but it feels like these things are not really within the scope of this game :)
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Regarding boarding, an idea could be to make it a lot more "guaranteed", but you get a ruined but towable hulk that can either be scrapped for cash or restored over a few days at a friendly shipyard for a significant sum (like, 0.8*hullcost, pay more if you dont want to risk ending up with a D-variant or something), alternatively a slower supply based restoration in your fleet if you have construction rigs in your fleet.
What would be really fabulous would be if I could ram my valkyrie into an enemy ship and enter a top down boarding minigame though, but it feels like these things are not really within the scope of this game :)
Actually that isn't a bad idea. If the number of ships you could bring back were related to say, the number of tugs you had it may effect the gameplay too. For instance you may need 1 tug for a frigate and up to four frigates for a single capital just to get to burn speed 1 back to a friendly base to refurbish the ship.
Part of the meaningful choice here is that your fleet will be reduced to burn speed 1...or maybe reduced by a significant amount...either way the lower burn speed leaves you vulnerable to attack and you may need to abandon the ship you captured as the enemy is returning for revenge...
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Hi, and welcome to the forum :)
ty :]
Part of the meaningful choice here is that your fleet will be reduced to burn speed 1...or maybe reduced by a significant amount...either way the lower burn speed leaves you vulnerable to attack and you may need to abandon the ship you captured as the enemy is returning for revenge...
that sounds neat. i think burn 1 might be too slow, considering even capitals will go by something like ~7 or so with the update, iirc. maybe 2 or 3? or alternatively, remove the number of tugs needed as a strict rule, but make speed depend on that (up to tug speed -1 or something like that, if you have a significant number).
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While adding more player agency in boarding would be really nice, what I'd really like to see is salvaging. Unlike boarding it would consist in towing a disabled hulk of your choosing (between a few "salvageable" ships) with tugs to the nearest star-port equipped with a drydock (a new economy building). There you could restore it. In addition, having a construction rig in the fleet could allow to repair some of the engines giving the hull a burn of one instead of 0, leaving you the choice to use either tugs or rigs or both. The hull complete repair would cost the same or even a bit more than buying a new ship, but it could allows the player to build a decent fleet without having to farm reputation with every factions and then visit all the markets hopping to find the right ship. And given that towing would be slow, it would be quite dangerous to do so in an hostile system but very rewarding (especially with the sensor update coming).
So more player control over witch ship get salvaged, more use for the tugs and rigs, and more reasons to wage war upon non pirates factions!
Next to that the current boarding stay mostly as it is, but like Gothars suggested only for surrendered ships. Those could be in a much better state, but you may have to overcome some defenses.
On the other hand I'm not into the idea of in-combat boarding as it could be confusing and easily exploitable (see Homeworld's ion frigates armada).
Seems relevant.
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^ Cool beans, even more elaborate.
As long as you can use boarding/salvaging to acquire otherwise locked out faction ships in a way that costs more in effort, cash and controllable risk taking than buying them from a friendly faction. To tie utility ships into it all would be great, as they currently have very small niches. Also I personally love utility ships, cant wait for industry to be implemented :)
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Awesome, looking forward to the Expanded Battles, I am generally a fan of only having a very small squadron of ships, like 1 Cruiser and 1-2 Frigates, so battles like this really suit my playstyle more, where I do not want specifically to be the largest force but still be able to provide some support to the other ships and get some rewards out of it.
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Quite an update we're in for. Thanks for hard work as always Alex.
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Taking into consideration the speed of the past few blog posts (and the surprising speed they're coming out with), I predict the release of this magnificent update in 10 days, give or take 3 days.
Our efforts at persuading Alex to revamp boarding seem to be feeble, heh. That aside, Alex, has boarding been completely removed from the game or simply turned off? Can we still enable it with mods, for example?
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Well yellow has been the long industry standard for allies in rts games.
Yeah, whoever devised such an unconventional colour scheme (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Military_Symbols_for_Land_Based_Systems#Affiliation) has a lot to answer for!
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Taking into consideration the speed of the past few blog posts (and the surprising speed they're coming out with), I predict the release of this magnificent update in 10 days, give or take 3 days.
Our efforts at persuading Alex to revamp boarding seem to be feeble, heh. That aside, Alex, has boarding been completely removed from the game or simply turned off? Can we still enable it with mods, for example?
Well as an order-of-magnitude estimate that's probably correct...
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Well as an order-of-magnitude estimate that's probably correct...
Have some hope my friend. I can smell it, it's that close.
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Alex, has boarding been completely removed from the game or simply turned off? Can we still enable it with mods, for example?
It's already been saved. =)
actually, I took boarding out entirely for the moment. It mostly seems like a save-load encourager at the moment, with the frustration of it not really worth the benefits. I'd like to eventually bring it back when the larger context for it shapes up and it's more clear how to make it good. I think it's going to take more finalized mechanics for ship availability before that happens.
Oh, wow. Okay. I get that the mechanic is not functioning as intended within the larger meta, but could it be left in, at least as a configurable option somewhere? I'm having a ton of fun playing with the Starsector Plus settings Rare Ships (very few ships in markets, uncommon ships now extremely hard to find), Expensive Ships (2.5x normal price, effects weapons too IIRC), and Easier Boarding (exactly what it says) on; I build a fleet out of what I can capture, and I have a ton of fun flying very heterogeneous fleets this way with ships I wouldn't normally use.
Hmm. Yeah, alright - part of the reason for taking it out was, well, not wanting to recode it for the "with allies" scenarios, but that didn't turn out to be so bad. It's back in :)
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Well yellow has been the long industry standard for allies in rts games.
Yeah, whoever devised such an unconventional colour scheme (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Military_Symbols_for_Land_Based_Systems#Affiliation) has a lot to answer for!
Haha the instant I saw that Arma memories come flooding in my mind.
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It's already been saved. =)
Oh, nice that it's been saved, awesome! Missed that post.
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Yeah, whoever devised such an unconventional colour scheme (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Military_Symbols_for_Land_Based_Systems#Affiliation) has a lot to answer for!
i had no idea this was an official military thing, but i always associated either blue or green with "ally" in games (with the other of the two usually being the player) and yellow neutral or "not aggressive". white then is neutral / passive.
although maybe that is more from rpgs and such, especially mmos, rather than strategy.
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I predict the release of this magnificent update in 10 days, give or take 3 days.
Hahahaha...haha...haaa.... Good one!
Remember that for 0.65a, 2 months had past between the last blog post (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2014/08/25/trade-smuggling/) (25th of August) and the actual release (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2014/10/20/starsector-0-65a-release/) (20th of October).
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I've been looking at the Repair Gantry in the Barad ship ledgers for a long time (playing as a pirate) and daydreaming up uses for them. One of my favorites suddenly seems very relevant.
After a battle you may elect to take a destroyed ship for each unoccupied Repair Gantry in your fleet. These could be your own ships that wen't easily salvageable, enemy ships that are disabled but not destroyed, or disabled allied ships that you get the OK to take with you.
The gantry would repair that ship to 100% over the course of the next few weeks, and the ship would be unusable until the gantry finished it's work. If the fleet has to flee, the ship is tethered to the gantry. If you want to give up on the ship you would give the gantry a "scrap" order for that ship.
You would still have to board enemy ships to clear out resistance, and if you don't have a gantry you can still take a ship with the "normal" boarding algorithm. Having a gantry would just make refurbishing one ship at a time MUCH more reliable, though a bit more expensive.
This would still allow for early game boarding as a freak luck option, and would provide a more reliable way to acquire expensive and rare ships for a player who is further along.
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Hahahaha...haha...haaa.... Good one!
Remember that for 0.65a, 2 months had past between the last blog post (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2014/08/25/trade-smuggling/) (25th of August) and the actual release (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2014/10/20/starsector-0-65a-release/) (20th of October).
Mind you, there hasn't actually been an update to the changelog for nye on 4 months now - and usually, an update is released with the update of the changelog. :D
Also - from Alex's Twitter concerning a release this year: "Extreeeemly likely :) And thank you!"
Awesome!
Think I'm going too off-topic - please don't lock it Gothars.
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You guys keep surprising me with this game! I really cant wait for the update! Keep up the good work man! ;D
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Not to mention that these battles are going to be great to try out new stuff, although I expect some battles being hard specially when the side you are aiding is clearly outnumbered by the other forces, although that does create an additional challenge.
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YES.
EXPANDED BATTLE HYPE!
I love it man, can't wait for the 0.7 update. All this excitement buildup for the last couple of months.
Keep up the beautiful work :)
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Even tho its been long since the last update, but stuff just keep getting added on and on. So much better then so many of those indi games out there who actually have a team much larger.
Alex is some kind of programming miracle worker. :-*
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Oh, boy! Can't wait to play around with this, this is bound to make the early game a ton more interesting still. Keep up the good work!
I've been looking at the Repair Gantry in the Barad ship ledgers for a long time (playing as a pirate) and daydreaming up uses for them. One of my favorites suddenly seems very relevant.
After a battle you may elect to take a destroyed ship for each unoccupied Repair Gantry in your fleet. These could be your own ships that wen't easily salvageable, enemy ships that are disabled but not destroyed, or disabled allied ships that you get the OK to take with you.
The gantry would repair that ship to 100% over the course of the next few weeks, and the ship would be unusable until the gantry finished it's work. If the fleet has to flee, the ship is tethered to the gantry. If you want to give up on the ship you would give the gantry a "scrap" order for that ship.
You would still have to board enemy ships to clear out resistance, and if you don't have a gantry you can still take a ship with the "normal" boarding algorithm. Having a gantry would just make refurbishing one ship at a time MUCH more reliable, though a bit more expensive.
This would still allow for early game boarding as a freak luck option, and would provide a more reliable way to acquire expensive and rare ships for a player who is further along.
...whoa. I really like the sound of that. Not entirely sure how it'd look in-game with a mobile gantry, but the mechanic seems pretty damn solid to me.
Possible alternative: Orbital gantries set up through the whole industry thing. Build a gantry around a planet you're friendly with, and have tow ships (or freighters?) drag damaged ships over there for repairs. Could even add some extra complexity there by giving ships a certain "engine rating", where they have a chance of still being able to fire (some of) their engines reliably for faster travel. Can totally see that working for deep space exploration, where you have the chance to try and get an exotic ship over to more familiar space.
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once again i'm reliably late to these blog posts, and all my questions have been answered already.
so... i'll just say, AWESOME,
this next update is fraking massive, we've got multi fleet battles, officers, space terrain in both hyperspace and normal space, campaign level abilities, faction music, faction colored ships, the entire transponder system, new ships, and campaign missions. (Am i missing anything?)
Any one of those features could easily be an update by itself, but ALL OF THEM TOGETHER? Insanity.
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Thinking of that, a "impromptu mercenary mechanic" would be interesting, where you can pay nearby non-allied fleets to join a battle on your side. Or get a monetary offer to join an ongoing battle.
Or even something where you pay a mercenary fleet to follow you around for a month, joining in battles if needed. Some interesting potential here!
Or the other way round: Someone with a grudge following you around (maybe in a stealthy ship, trying to stay just outside your sensor range?) and waiting for you to get into a fight, at which point he will join on the side of your opponent. Might be a professional headhunter or someone you wronged in the past. Uhh, suspense.
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Thinking of that, a "impromptu mercenary mechanic" would be interesting, where you can pay nearby non-allied fleets to join a battle on your side. Or get a monetary offer to join an ongoing battle.
Or even something where you pay a mercenary fleet to follow you around for a month, joining in battles if needed. Some interesting potential here!
Or the other way round: Someone with a grudge following you around (maybe in a stealthy ship, trying to stay just outside your sensor range?) and waiting for you to get into a fight, at which point he will join on the side of your opponent. Might be a professional headhunter or someone you wronged in the past. Uhh, suspense.
Tying this into a post i previously made about officers and patrol captains having separate relations with you than their mother faction, maybe a hegemony patrol captain that dislikes you sees you fighting pirates and doesn't help you despite you being allied with the hegemony.
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What happens if you attack the ships in an allied fleet? Do they automatically turn hostile?
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What happens if you attack the ships in an allied fleet? Do they automatically turn hostile?
Nothing happens currently. Finding a proper solution is tricky to say the least - there'a always accidents and outright deliberate shooting of allies to take into account (the first thing that popped into Megas' mind, the ever-powerful exploiter he is).
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What happens if you attack the ships in an allied fleet? Do they automatically turn hostile?
Nothing happens currently. Finding a proper solution is tricky to say the least - there'a always accidents and outright deliberate shooting of allies to take into account (the first thing that popped into Megas' mind, the ever-powerful exploiter he is).
I remember Alex mentioned the idea of having a fleet-specific reputation. Maybe that could be worked into it, where the reputation changes during the battle depending on how much damage you do to the allied fleet.
So if you had a good reputation with the allied fleet, they'll be more forgiving of friendly fire, but if you're fighting pirates and the allied fleet is neutral toward you, they'll turn on you if you so much as nick them with a beam weapon.
The one other thing I'm not so sure about is having other fleets automatically join in the battle... what's the radius on that? Is there any delay before they join?
I think it would be nice to have at least some chance of eliminating them one by one if you're quick and aggressive.
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Oh my god, we are finally having allies! Am I dreaming? Dev team, you are awesome! I really didn't expect such a big feature in 0.7
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Ya I think it's going to be extremely difficult to implement a mechanic that makes the allies turn into enemies when you start shooting them, the best case scenario is that it would lower significantly your reputation with that allied faction.
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If it was easy to have allies turn against you during combat, it probably would not have been too hard to implement multi-sided free-for-all battles instead of two-sided battles.
Reputation hit and/or lack of XP/loot would be sufficient deterrence from deliberate killing of allies. I would not waste time shooting allies if it does not pay. I might pulverize an ally if I lost a ship due to friendly fire or if they stole my objective and I do not get the benefits. That reminds me...
If an ally of the player captures a point, do the benefits apply to ally and player, or just ally only?
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I think the game should react to intentional, heavy friendly fire in some way, just because it is something players will do (if just for curiosity's sake) and it will detract from the believability of the game world if it just ignores such behavior. During battle it would be enough if all allied ships retreat. Outside there should be bigger repercussions.
If an ally of the player captures a point, do the benefits apply to ally and player, or just ally only?
The bonus is shared.
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Allies retreat and you would that faction sending in their best ships to try and take you out, so essentially you would be in their bounty lists for a while and you would have to remain low and recover reputation
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Wow, that's an awesome feature ! Too bad there aren't delayed fleet reinforcements, it could add some dramatic situations. It doesn't seem so much harder to implement thought and totally worth it from a combat perspective. Maybe give a reinforcement delay bonus in the case of choosing to escape a battle, as the fleet manage to win time by taking evasive maneuvers. Or even delay bonus depending on the number of beacons captured, that way you could win a fight with an unsustainable strategy. Looking forward this update anyway !
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This Extended Battles feature is going to change everything. Like everything about this game. I'm so excited! Fantastic work m8
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The potential to have 2-6 way battle :D?
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The potential to have 2-6 way battle :D?
Yep, 6-way battles. Also, multiplayer is confirmed! In fact, Starsector's campaign will be transitioning to MMO-style!
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Yep, 6-way battles. Also, multiplayer is confirmed! In fact, Starsector's campaign will be transitioning to MMO-style!
Oh boy, I can already feel the spiders and fetch quests.
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Oh boy, I can already feel the spiders and fetch quests.
i don't know about (space) spiders, but according to the campaign missions blog post (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2015/03/26/campaign-missions/), we are getting fetch quests with 0.7 ^^
Mission: Procurement Contract
It made sense to start with something simple, so simple it is. The mission goal can be summed up easily: “acquire a quantity of commodity X and deliver it to market Y for a reward”.
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The potential to have 2-6 way battle :D?
The potential to have 2-6 way battle :D?
Yep, 6-way battles. Also, multiplayer is confirmed! In fact, Starsector's campaign will be transitioning to MMO-style!
Sorry to shoot people down, but this isn't the case. You can't join an ongoing battle unless one side trusts you enough to share their transponder codes and let you act as their ally. There is no showing up and shooting all sides. I guess you could shoot your 'allies', but I there will probably be a significant penalty for doing so. A bit of a bummer, yeah.
EDIT: references below
^ Good question about third party joiners above - can we swoop in and kill everyone? Similarly, will there be repercussions for destroying allied forces in battle? We don't want to see people fighting alongside their "allies", then ruthlessly backstabbing them without consequence.
You can't join unless you're hostile to only one side and/or friendly to to only one side.
If both fleets are hostile to the player, will the player be prevented from engaging until the fight is broken up?
Right.
Also, question for Alex: what happens if you're friendly with both sides in a fight? I'm in that situation right now in my game. 0.o Whoops, found my own answer in a quote!
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Sorry to shoot people down, but this isn't the case. You can't join an ongoing battle unless one side trusts you enough to share their transponder codes and let you act as their ally. There is no showing up and shooting all sides. I guess you could shoot your 'allies', but I there will probably be a significant penalty for doing so. A bit of a bummer, yeah.
I'm pretty certain they knew that, taking into consideration the way that they worded their responses. ;)
Also, if you're friendly to both, I think you have a choice as to which side to support. Obviously you'll *** off the other side if you choose to take part in the battle.
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If you're friendly to both you can't join.
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Why not? You can attack friendlies normally, so the interaction is already defined, attacking them in a group battle shouldn't be any different, should it?
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Neither side is going to trust you if you're known to be friendly with both.
Edit: the other part here is that things are much cleaner if you're only ever making a choice whether to join a battle or not, vs which side of a battle to join.
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Possible problem: I can't join faction A against faction B in battle, but if there is an another fleet of faction B nearby I can engage it, retreat immediately, lose rep, and *then* join the battle - which doesn't make much sense.
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Hmm. That seems to make good sense to me, I'm not seeing the problem.
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Me neither.
A possible annoyance could be if an enemy fleet that you want to fight gets in battle with a third hostile fleet, at which point you'd have to wait for that battle to end (IIRC). Which can last days. Or can you fight both at the same time, with them as spontaneous allies?
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Hmm. That seems to make good sense to me, I'm not seeing the problem.
I think the problem is that you just engage and retreat without actually doing anything and still lose the rep, but that you can't do that to either of the fleets that are currently engaged with each other. That's my interpretation anyways, and while I see where he or she is coming from I think it's not a huge deal worth changing. And for Gothar's suggestion, rather than both fight you at the same time, what if it was always the two smaller against the bigger? Then again this leads into "ooops I 'accidentally' shot all my allies while there was one tiny hostile ship left on the field" kind of thing, so since 3-way is out I'm guessing that couldn't be done anyways.
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A possible annoyance could be if an enemy fleet that you want to fight gets in battle with a third hostile fleet, at which point you'd have to wait for that battle to end (IIRC). Which can last days. Or can you fight both at the same time, with them as spontaneous allies?
You can't, no. I see what you mean, but it seems fairly minor, and trying to address it in some way would be a great deal of trouble. Ultimately it's just one of those "these are the rules" things, and there's benefit to keeping those clear.
Edit: and now I'm thinking about a "break it up" option, provided your fleet is sufficiently powerful. Too much other stuff to do to go in that direction now, though.
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A possible annoyance could be if an enemy fleet that you want to fight gets in battle with a third hostile fleet, at which point you'd have to wait for that battle to end (IIRC). Which can last days. Or can you fight both at the same time, with them as spontaneous allies?
Edit: and now I'm thinking about a "break it up" option, provided your fleet is sufficiently powerful. Too much other stuff to do to go in that direction now, though.
I'm gonna throw out my interpretation of "break it up".
A sufficiently powerful fleet can break up an existing battle. This gives negative reputation with each fleet that wanted to fight the original battle, positive rep with those that didn't, and no change with those who didn't care. Then, if the big fleet decides to attack one of the fleets from the original battle: standard neg rep for attacking a fleet, a new battle starts, and nearby fleets decide whether or not to join the same way as for any other battle.
Seems relatively simple to implement. The rep stuff is based on the existing fleet stances; might need to be capped by faction to prevent oddities around breaking up battles with lots of fleets. The only two things I see that might take some thinking are A) how to determine what "sufficiently powerful" is and B) how fleets joining a battle and fleet stances interact.
AI fleets could be allowed to break up battles too, since player battles are instant and thus can't be broken up.
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joining battles ... nice, interesting mechanic
the new version looks better and better, can't wait for the update
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A bit of an update - added damage tracking, so that:
1) Your share of salvage, bounties, and possible reputation gains depends entirely on the hull damage your ships have dealt compared to your allies, and
2) Friendly fire will be punished with reputation loss.
Minor incidents (i.e. a couple of hundred damage to a Lasher) will be ignored. Accidentally torpedoing a Hound might be a few points, in addition to forfeiting any reputation gains from helping. Killing a friendly Onslaught all by yourself will insta-drop it down to hostile. Finishing off a friendly Onslaught that was down to a sliver won't.
The threshold for friendly fire also depends on how important your help is, so if you're, say, helping out against terrible odds, you might get away with accidentally torpedoing a Hound. If you're "helping" a patrol chase down a lone pirate, torpedoing the same Hound will be looked at with less understanding.
The goal here isn't to make the mechanics here something the player interacts with in the course of normal gameplay, and there's no good gameplay reason to shoot up your allies. The rules above are more about not kicking in unnecessarily, while kicking in occasionally for "believability" reasons.
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Good changes, good changes :)
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Wait a hound can survive a torpedo?
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Wait a hound can survive a torpedo?
He never mentioned it surviving, hehe. ;)
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A bit of an update - added damage tracking, so that:
1) Your share of salvage, bounties, and possible reputation gains depends entirely on the hull damage your ships have dealt compared to your allies, and
2) Friendly fire will be punished with reputation loss.
Minor incidents (i.e. a couple of hundred damage to a Lasher) will be ignored. Accidentally torpedoing a Hound might be a few points, in addition to forfeiting any reputation gains from helping. Killing a friendly Onslaught all by yourself will insta-drop it down to hostile. Finishing off a friendly Onslaught that was down to a sliver won't.
The threshold for friendly fire also depends on how important your help is, so if you're, say, helping out against terrible odds, you might get away with accidentally torpedoing a Hound. If you're "helping" a patrol chase down a lone pirate, torpedoing the same Hound will be looked at with less understanding.
The goal here isn't to make the mechanics here something the player interacts with in the course of normal gameplay, and there's no good gameplay reason to shoot up your allies. The rules above are more about not kicking in unnecessarily, while kicking in occasionally for "believability" reasons.
Literally perfect IMO. Great working and thanks for letting us know!
Edited for text derp.
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A bit of an update - added damage tracking, so that:
1) Your share of salvage, bounties, and possible reputation gains depends entirely on the hull damage your ships have dealt compared to your allies, and
2) Friendly fire will be punished with reputation loss.
Minor incidents (i.e. a couple of hundred damage to a Lasher) will be ignored. Accidentally torpedoing a Hound might be a few points, in addition to forfeiting any reputation gains from helping. Killing a friendly Onslaught all by yourself will insta-drop it down to hostile. Finishing off a friendly Onslaught that was down to a sliver won't.
The threshold for friendly fire also depends on how important your help is, so if you're, say, helping out against terrible odds, you might get away with accidentally torpedoing a Hound. If you're "helping" a patrol chase down a lone pirate, torpedoing the same Hound will be looked at with less understanding.
The goal here isn't to make the mechanics here something the player interacts with in the course of normal gameplay, and there's no good gameplay reason to shoot up your allies. The rules above are more about not kicking in unnecessarily, while kicking in occasionally for "believability" reasons.
Great, that seems solid :) (Tracking shield/armor damage for positive reputation would be totally exploitable.)
I assume hitting an ally's armor or shields doesn't have any consequences?
Is damage tracked only per fleet or also per ship? Per ship "damage dealt" statistics would be very interesting to have...
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Wait a hound can survive a torpedo?
Yes, if you've equipped it with a shield generator.
It might possibly survive without shields if you've put all the HP and armor-boosting hullmods on it (540 armor and 3400 HP, not including skill bonuses), especially if you also have the character skills to further boost armor, though I'm not sure even all of that is sufficient. Of course, such a Hound would probably die to a stiff breeze after taking a torpedo hit even if this did allow the Hound to 'survive' the torpedo.
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I assume hitting an ally's armor or shields doesn't have any consequences?
None whatsoever.
Is damage tracked only per fleet or also per ship? Per ship "damage dealt" statistics would be very interesting to have...
It's tracked per fleet member, but it doesn't track shield/armor damage, and doesn't display it anywhere. The hull damage data is available for mods, though.
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is there an option to refuse letting an ally join into your battle? it could be annoying to track down a pirate fleet for salvage and bounty, just to find out that a large allied fleet in range will swoop in and take most of the loot, even in a battle you would've easily won without their support.
likewise, an attacking allied pirate or bounty hunter might be fine with a small player fleet lending a hand and taking a small amount of loot even in a rather one-sided battle, but probably wouldn't appreciate a powerful player fleet 'helping' and stealing all the loot by dominating the battle.
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I am greedy, especially for XP and loot that includes rare weapons. I would not like a meddling Hegemony fleet "helping" me grind some pirates and steal my kills and loot.
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You can't refuse help, no.
I did consider this - imo, there are already ways of dealing with it, as you don't have to engage enemies near fleets that will help, and you can make sure to do the most damage besides (which, realistically, you probably will if you didn't need help in the first place). Finally, nearby fleets won't try to help if you've already got the advantage.
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i don't think dealing the majority of hull damage as a player is a given in any battle you'd win without problems, if the allied fleet is much larger. a lone player controlled Medusa with some combat skills can take on a rather sizeable pirate fleet, by whittling them down one by one. it's not that difficult or risky as long as you're patient (and don't overextend just to finish off a wounded Lasher.. <.<) but it can take a while (Hardened Subsystems hullmod is probably a good idea).
if the allied fleet has a bunch of destroyers and frigates, and maybe some fighters/bombers or cruisers as well, they would probably steamroll the pirates and do most of the hull damage in that fight.
ai fleets just not joining battles that seem a sure victory should definitely help, although it depends on what they would consider as such a "sure victory". would they help said lone Medusa against a bunch of (D)-designated destroyers and frigates?^^ probably, considering a pirate fleet of that size also tends to initiate battles against the player that it won't win.
but then again, i guess the problem here is more with a single player controlled ship being so powerful (at least against very low-tech enemies) rather than with the expanded battles mechanics themselves.
just not initiating such battles while allied fleets are in range obviously gets rid of this problem, just seems to me it would feel weird to have to do that.
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If you slaughter your "Allies" in battle, will they turn on you, or can you kill them to the last ship, then the enemy, and take all the loot from all sides?
I don't think this is actually possible to accomplish without modded OP ships, but it would be hilarious.
I could imagine this as a workaround to breaking ties with another faction, and crippling at least one of their fleets in the process.
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It is like Sy wrote. With max Combat and Technology, I am good at demolishing non-bounty fleets with a couple Wolves or Medusa, and I do not want a meddling fleet stealing my kills. No, I cannot kill such pirate fleets immediately, it takes time to do so.
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Hmmm... perhaps if our transponders are off the allies won't know who we are, so won't "help" when we don't want them to? Or some other preference from that set?
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If you slaughter your "Allies" in battle, will they turn on you, or can you kill them to the last ship, then the enemy, and take all the loot from all sides?
You won't get loot from killing allies, only lose reputation. They won't turn on you during the battle, though.
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i don't think dealing the majority of hull damage as a player is a given in any battle you'd win without problems, if the allied fleet is much larger. a lone player controlled Medusa with some combat skills can take on a rather sizeable pirate fleet, by whittling them down one by one. it's not that difficult or risky as long as you're patient (and don't overextend just to finish off a wounded Lasher.. <.<) but it can take a while (Hardened Subsystems hullmod is probably a good idea).
if the allied fleet has a bunch of destroyers and frigates, and maybe some fighters/bombers or cruisers as well, they would probably steamroll the pirates and do most of the hull damage in that fight.
It is like Sy wrote. With max Combat and Technology, I am good at demolishing non-bounty fleets with a couple Wolves or Medusa, and I do not want a meddling fleet stealing my kills. No, I cannot kill such pirate fleets immediately, it takes time to do so.
From a purely mechanical point of view, this situationally encourages a more aggressive playstyle, which I think is good. It's good to have an extra reason to mix up your tactics.
just not initiating such battles while allied fleets are in range obviously gets rid of this problem, just seems to me it would feel weird to have to do that.
Yeah, I hear you. On the one hand, it's maybe a bit gamey. On the other hand, being able to pick and choose what fleets you allow to join would be a pain for the player, also gamey (do you imagine an official patrol would really take "no, I got this" for an answer?), and much more complex to implement.
ai fleets just not joining battles that seem a sure victory should definitely help, although it depends on what they would consider as such a "sure victory". would they help said lone Medusa against a bunch of (D)-designated destroyers and frigates?^^ probably, considering a pirate fleet of that size also tends to initiate battles against the player that it won't win.
but then again, i guess the problem here is more with a single player controlled ship being so powerful (at least against very low-tech enemies) rather than with the expanded battles mechanics themselves.
They consider your (and your officer's) levels, but yeah, even so, it's very much going to err on the side of being safe.
Hmmm... perhaps if our transponders are off the allies won't know who we are, so won't "help" when we don't want them to? Or some other preference from that set?
Oh, right, forgot about that. Yes, if your transponder is off *and* they don't know who you are (i.e. didn't see you recently with the transponder on) then they won't join. And won't let you join an ongoing battle. But running with your transponder off in full view of patrols is generally not a good idea - you're only going to get away with it in independent space.
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Could it be done so that you loose more or less reputation depending on how much rep/how much dmg you do to the allied fleet ?
For Example : you should loose more rep if you have high rep to start with and you blow up (intentional or otherwise) an ally ship. So if you backstab your ally with which you have 80 rep, and blow up 1 or 2 of his ships you should go to negative.
Or a loss of rep based on the actual dmg you do ( 1% 2% 3% etc...) to the allied fleet (or on a ship to ship basis)
If there`s no way of them becoming hostile...could you make them retreat ? As in trying to retreat and reorganize to face the new threat (the backstabbing **** player ;)
As for friendly fire...in a fight with loads of ships missiles etc strafing around one or two missed shots should not penalize you that much.
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you're only going to get away with it in independent space.
And pirate space! ;) Arr!
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And pirate space! ;) Arr!
Yes, but then the point of friendlies offering unwanted help is rather moot :)
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And pirate space! ;) Arr!
Yes, but then the point of friendlies offering unwanted help is rather moot :)
Says you! Down with the oppressors!
*cough * sorry bout that...
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From a purely mechanical point of view, this situationally encourages a more aggressive playstyle, which I think is good. It's good to have an extra reason to mix up your tactics.
that's true. having to switch from the usual hit-and-run tactics to "everyone race for the loot!" once in a while could actually be a good thing^^
Oh, right, forgot about that. Yes, if your transponder is off *and* they don't know who you are (i.e. didn't see you recently with the transponder on) then they won't join. And won't let you join an ongoing battle.
new question: if having the transponder off means other fleets don't really know who you are, does that interfere with the "you can only join battles if you're hostile to one or friendly to one" rule?
for example, fleet A has its transponder off and attacks fleet B. nearby fleet C is friendly with both A and B. can C still support B, because they can't know that A is an ally as well? and if C is still prevented from supporting either side because of the above rule, how is that shown to the player? if the player is C, it could be confusing not being able to help an ally in trouble (B) defend against what looks to be a neutral/unidentified aggressor (A).
...or am i just misunderstanding the effects of a disabled transponder?
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new question: if having the transponder off means other fleets don't really know who you are, does that interfere with the "you can only join battles if you're hostile to one or friendly to one" rule?
I wouldn't say "interferes" so much as "works with" or "factors into" :)
for example, fleet A has its transponder off and attacks fleet B. nearby fleet C is friendly with both A and B. can C still support B, because they can't know that A is an ally as well? and if C is still prevented from supporting either side because of the above rule, how is that shown to the player? if the player is C, it could be confusing not being able to help an ally in trouble (B) defend against what looks to be a neutral/unidentified aggressor (A).
...or am i just misunderstanding the effects of a disabled transponder?
The player is not fooled by other fleets' transponder status (they can still see the faction etc when they get close enough), and so it has no impact here.
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Says you! Down with the oppressors!
*cough * sorry bout that...
Ah, I just got what you meant. :D
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@Sy
I think C won't support B, since A is still an unknown (they have no idea who you are). You're not misunderstanding anything, I think - just those pesky edge cases. :D At least, if Fleet A is the player's fleet.
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Ah, those in-battle officer portraits give it kind of a Freespace feel. ;D. My nostalgia aside, I really like that implementation. Great job!
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Could it be done so that you loose more or less reputation depending on how much rep/how much dmg you do to the allied fleet ?
seems this is how it will work. penalties depend on amount of hull-damage done to your allies. additionally, your allies are more forgiving of friendly fire in battles they likely would've lost without your support.
The player is not fooled by other fleets' transponder status (they can still see the faction etc when they get close enough), and so it has no impact here.
i see. thanks for all the quick answers :]
@Sy
I think C won't support B, since A is still an unknown (they have no idea who you are). You're not misunderstanding anything, I think - just those pesky edge cases. :D At least, if Fleet A is the player's fleet.
i guess the ai has to technically know who the fleets are as well, even if that isn't how the transponder works in lore. since they should not support either fleet in a battle between two of their allies, but they probably should support an allied fleet in a battle against a hostile pirate (who will usually have their transponder off as well, i think).
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i guess the ai has to technically know who the fleets are as well, even if that isn't how the transponder works in lore. since they should not support either fleet in a battle between two of their allies, but they probably should support an allied fleet in a battle against a hostile pirate (who will usually have their transponder off as well, i think).
I guess you could theoretically say that once the AI has come close enough to your fleet and have made contact, they have an idea of who you are (sort of similar to how the player knows fleets once they come close enough). Fleet B most definitely knows Fleet A isn't a pirate (maybe due to the kind of "response" from the comm link), but they don't know exactly. Lore could say they contacted Fleet C telling them who they are (since Fleet C is friendly to both), and Fleet C isn't willing to take the risk so they don't participate. Blah, that's just me rambling.
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Lore could say they contacted Fleet C telling them who they are (since Fleet C is friendly to both), and Fleet C isn't willing to take the risk so they don't participate. Blah, that's just me rambling.
yeah, i think that'd make sense. if both fleets are friendly, A might just be able to inform C of their identity (at least if C is close enough to be in reinforcement range) without enabling the transponder. if A isn't willing to provide identification (since a pirate's best bet would likely be to just not send anything) C would have good reason to believe that A is hostile.
on the other hand, if that's how it works, why can a fleet with disabled transponder not join someone else's battle themselves? that only makes sense if that fleet has no way of providing (or proving) its identity to the one they are trying to support. hmmmm.
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on the other hand, if that's how it works, why can a fleet with disabled transponder not join someone else's battle themselves? that only makes sense if that fleet has no way of providing (or proving) its identity to the one they are trying to support. hmmmm.
I don't understand what you're trying to say? Of course a fleet friendly to you won't let you join in if your transponder if off (since they have no idea who you are with that transponder off). It's not about providing information - it's about if the fleet trusts your or not.
...
Speaking of transponders, would it be possible to mimic the transponder signal of another faction? Like, you can mimic the transponder signal from a Tri-Tachyon fleet and get into a station's open market if you're hostile to them.
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I don't understand what you're trying to say? Of course a fleet friendly to you won't let you join in if your transponder if off (since they have no idea who you are with that transponder off). It's not about providing information - it's about if the fleet trusts your or not.
yeah, but then this should also be true in the case of fleet C not trusting A. A is allied with C, but C can't know that if A has their transponder off. so C should be supporting their other ally, B, in a fight against A.
so either fleets do have a way of letting nearby allies know who they are, even while their transponder is off (which means enabled transponder shouldn't be necessary to join into an ally's battle) or they don't (which means sometimes a supporting fleet should join into a battle between two of their allies, if one of those has the transponder off, as the supporting fleet wouldn't be able to know that they're fighting an ally).
of course, that's only a small lore issue, not something that would be a problem in terms of game mechanics.
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I thought that's exactly what I said?
I guess you could theoretically say that once the AI has come close enough to your fleet and have made contact, they have an idea of who you are (sort of similar to how the player knows fleets once they come close enough). Fleet B most definitely knows Fleet A isn't a pirate (maybe due to the kind of "response" from the comm link), but they don't know exactly. Lore could say they contacted Fleet C telling them who they are (since Fleet C is friendly to both), and Fleet C isn't willing to take the risk so they don't participate.
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I thought that's exactly what I said?
right, sorry. you're saying the supporting fleet (C) would know the attacker (A) is at least not a pirate, even if the attacker doesn't have a way to provide full identification without the transponder?
but the same would still be true if it was fleet C defending against hostiles, and A (with disabled transponder) coming to support. A could contact C directly to let them know who they are. and even if C can't know for certain that A is telling the truth, they'd still be able to see that A isn't a pirate (or a member of whatever faction it is that is attacking C).
in both cases it comes down to whether C trusts that A is telling the truth. it makes sense that C would err on the side of caution in a battle they aren't directly involved in anyway (they'd like to support their ally, but they'd rather not risk attacking another ally in the process) but i think the same would be true in the case of C defending against a, likely more powerful, attacker (they don't trust the supporting fleet completely, but they also don't have much of a choice than to take the risk, if they want to win the battle).
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May as well make sure: NPC fleets in battle with each other can't leave for any reason until the battle ends, right?
"Alright boys, let's show these Tri-Tachyon scum what's what... HEY YOU GET YOUR MITTS OFF THAT COMM RELAY"
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STOP! YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE LAW!
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May as well make sure: NPC fleets in battle with each other can't leave for any reason until the battle ends, right?
Correct.
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By the order of the Tri-Tachyon, stop right there!
You have committed crimes against the Tri-Tachyon and her people. What say you in your defense?
Made me crack up ;D
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By the order of the Tri-Tachyon, stop right there!
You have committed crimes against the Tri-Tachyon and her people. What say you in your defense?
Made me crack up ;D
you mean Whiterun?
And also Alex, can we get an ETA on the update? 2 months, 2 days, 2 hours? And what are you specifically working on ATM?
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And also Alex, can we get an ETA on the update? 2 months, 2 days, 2 hours? And what are you specifically working on ATM?
No ETAs, as usual, though I'll say that there's an internal target date. And it's soon.... (tm).
Currently updating trade disruption events. Need to clean those up to be more in sync with how the update food shortage event works. Which probably raises more questions than it answers, but that's what you get for asking!
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Thx for reply Alex!
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What isn't clear is whether these supporting fleets are available from the outset, or if they have delayed arrival. (based upon their speed & distance from the battle site).
From the outset.
Aww Kinda sad about this one because if fleets had delayed timing based on distance it would make for some really interesting scenarios. An example is like if you attacked a smaller fleet that ended up being supported by a much larger fleet. You'd have two minutes or something (dependent on distance and burn speed) to kill or force the small fleet to disengage or you'd end up being caught by a much larger fleet. Could even make some interesting scenarios based off of winning an engagement like that, like being able to set up an ambush as the support fleet full burns to help it's allies.
Or on the other hand you have to stay alive for a couple of minutes and have your support fleet come in the on the flanks of the engaged enemy etc,.
But I also understand that also makes stuff more difficult code-wise, but I can dream dammit!
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Unrelated thought: Officer portrait above the flux/CR bar on every ship looks like clutter, at least judging from the screenshot. They tell you there's an officer on board, but unless you remember which face is which officer it doesn't seem like they communicate more info than that (like the key "what combat skills will this ship have?")
Could ships instead get a "has officer" icon, with the portrait only on targeted ships and in places like the ship info card?
This shot is particularly officer-rich. It doesn't feel cluttered in practice, at least so far. The main thing the icon communicates, aside from the fact that an officer is on board, is the officer's level - which is a very good indicator of their overall strength. I did think about showing this only for targeted ships, but it's just too important a piece of information not to have up at all times. But I guess what you're suggesting would still do that, just with a smaller and different icon. Hmm. I think I like the portraits better - they look nice, convey more information if you *do* recognize the officer, and are more intuitive than a "hey, what IS that icon" that a different - and smaller - icon would be.
I really like polished and minimalistic UIs and Starsector has a very good UI all things considered.
The picture with the officers feels cluttered and takes away from the otherwise awesome and clear battlefield.
At the same time I am a bit conflicted because the portraits look very good (but just don't show them inside the battle).
While this is probably pretty low on the prioritization list I would really appreciate if you could have another look at this
"feature" at some point in the future.
I would suggest one or more of the following:
Make portrait in battle:
[1] optional (changeable via settings)
[2] press key (toggle) to show / hide
[3] press key (toggle) to minimize /maximize
[4] press key (toggle) to switch between symbols / portrait
[5] press key (toggle) to switch between symbols / portrait + let the player color-code their officers / symbols individually
While you said this picture is not representative because fewer officers are the norm, consider the SS endgame and
mods that make extensive use of this new feature. For every ship there will be an additional picture on the battlefield.
For smaller ships like frigates this picture is as big as the ship itself...
Personally I would really like to be able to replace the officer portrait in battles with just a few tiny symbols (maybe color-coded) => solution [4] or [5].
However if this is not doable the solutions [2] and [3] are also very good because they will still enable the player to quickly check
relevant information about the officers when needed. Option [1] would strip the player from this information but at least preserve
the battle-clarity.
Besides this feedback: Very good job Alex! I am looking forward to the next release.
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re: Officer portraits in battle, I just took a closer look at that screenshot, and um, wow. Yeah, they're kinda large. I thought they'd be 1/4 that size.
The current implementation would be cool if there was a way to specatate or replay battles - in those situations, cool! It's like watching sports on TV. =P But I definitely don't want those cluttering up my tactical UI during battle. All I care about is a) if the ship should be a priority target and b) if it will be extra hard to kill.
I'd prefer a having small, golden five-pointed stars above the word 'flux'. Assuming that the skill system stays the same, with major bonuses at level 5 and 10, show one star if their aptitude level is under 5, two stars if it's between 5 and 9, and three stars if it's at 10. Maybe make the stars red and pulse a bit if that person in particular has a bounty on their head. The point is, I neither need nor want portraits the size of ships.
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How about if the pictures only show up in high zoom levels? You could even rig it so that the necessary zoom level scales with ship size, so you always see officers of capitals but have to zoom in close to see the portrait of a frigate officer. Symbols for the rest of the time.
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Honestly we don't need to see the picture of the officers.
All that matters is how deadly they are: their level, their type of preferred combat(sniper, assault, defense), and their specialty/skills(missiles, energy weapons...)
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Honestly we don't need to see the picture of the officers.
All that matters is how deadly they are: their level, their type of preferred combat(sniper, assault, defense), and their specialty/skills(missiles, energy weapons...)
How could you know that? The rank should give a general idea of the officer competences, but otherwise the game shouldn't reveal that kind of stuff (except maybe in some specific cases like a bounty, or a regular fleet officer in a system you hacked the relay)
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This looks awesome Alex, keep up the great work.
as some others have pointed out, i think the officer portraits in combat may end up being too cluttered. i dont think it will be a huge deal, and either way im excited to try it out. But i wonder if a series of stars / dots / bars (imitating officer uniform ranking symbols) in place of the portrait would work better? i imagine them being somwhat small, not much taller than the hull / flux bars themselves.
or maybe have full on rank insignias in place of the portrait, perhaps a bit smaller. some fictioned-up navy/airforce style insignias could be fun.
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And also Alex, can we get an ETA on the update? 2 months, 2 days, 2 hours? And what are you specifically working on ATM?
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9530.msg164826#msg164826
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Tomorow is the anniversary of the 0.65a release. I hoped for a surprise but since Alex is still coding and testing new things it's not going to happen. :-[
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Who knows, maybe something will happen. :)
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Might get a new blog post or change log.
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Ah, why not - updated the patch notes (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9278.0).
(As far as the officer portraits: I see what you guys are saying, but I'd like to keep it as-is and see how it plays out. Haven't felt it was a problem myself while playtesting, but will keep an eye out.)
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Ah, why not - updated the patch notes (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9278.0).
(As far as the officer portraits: I see what you guys are saying, but I'd like to keep it as-is and see how it plays out. Haven't felt it was a problem myself while playtesting, but will keep an eye out.)
Fair enough, and thanks for the changelog update. =)
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Hey, thanks!
Tartiflette has magical powers of prediction!
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Ah, why not - updated the patch notes (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9278.0).
Fun! ;D ;D ;D
(As far as the officer portraits: I see what you guys are saying, but I'd like to keep it as-is and see how it plays out. Haven't felt it was a problem myself while playtesting, but will keep an eye out.)
What you should do is see how it looks when you crop out the excess portions of the portraits, namely everything below the shoulders. Not only would the images take less space but nothing important would be sacrificed. The main feature of the portraits is the mug, after all.
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What you should do is see how it looks when you crop out the excess portions of the portraits, namely everything below the shoulders. Not only would the images take less space but nothing important would be sacrificed. The main feature of the portraits is the mug, after all.
There's now way to be sure what part of the picture is the face in custom/mod portraits. And it would limit David's artistic freedom, I'd rather have the portraits more varied, not more unified.
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What you should do is see how it looks when you crop out the excess portions of the portraits, namely everything below the shoulders. Not only would the images take less space but nothing important would be sacrificed. The main feature of the portraits is the mug, after all.
There's now way to be sure what part of the picture is the face in custom/mod portraits. And it would limit David's artistic freedom, I'd rather have the portraits more varied, not more unified.
I wasn't suggesting that the base portraits be modified, but for the in-combat portraits to have separate images which are cropped. This gives Alex the choice of either shrinking the in-game display or keeping it the same size and allowing a closer shot of the face.
Uncropped:
(http://i.imgur.com/VUfSj6v.png)
Cropped:
(http://i.imgur.com/4fHaPqd.png)
You can still identify the picture and less space is taken.
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Ah, yeah, that makes sense. Well, let's see how having them in game actually feels. Hopefully soon :)
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How buggy is the new update? Are things well implemented as of now? Are fleets actually playing smart(using new functions like sensors off) or are they not functional?
Sorry, I am really in anticipation for this update.
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I've seen some video slipped into specific sources, and from that I can tell that the AI knows how to use at least some of the abilities. :)
We don't know if it's buggy or not - besides, if it were buggy after the release, Alex would hotfix it ASAP. Although I trust Alex's playtesting to catch most of them.
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Well, given the size of the update, I'd expect a few bugs more bugs than usual to slip through to the release, but as far as what you're asking: it's all in pretty good shape.
(For example, AI fleets will use the full range of abilities to try to find you once they've spotted and then subsequently lost you, down to executing search patterns to comb the area. I swear, it sometimes feels like they're cheating when they find you, but they're not.)
I've seen some video slipped into specific sources, and from that I can tell that the AI knows how to use at least some of the abilities. :)
Could you clarify, please? Over PM if appropriate.
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I've seen some video slipped into specific sources, and from that I can tell that the AI knows how to use at least some of the abilities. :)
Could you clarify, please? Over PM if appropriate.
An AI fleet uses Emergency Burn in Stian's Faction Music video. :)
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Ahh :)
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An AI fleet uses Emergency Burn in Stian's Faction Music video. :)
Yup, he slipped that in a month after the post aired, the sneaky bugger. :D
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Nah, it was there from the beginning. Maybe your vid froze or something. I don't think you even can change YT videos without re-uploading them.
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Yep, 6-way battles. Also, multiplayer is confirmed! In fact, Starsector's campaign will be transitioning to MMO-style!
Oh boy, I can already feel the spiders and fetch quests.
what the heck are you talking about..if I want a space mmo I just play Eve Online
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Yep, 6-way battles. Also, multiplayer is confirmed! In fact, Starsector's campaign will be transitioning to MMO-style!
Oh boy, I can already feel the spiders and fetch quests.
what the heck are you talking about..if I want a space mmo I just play Eve Online
I think they are joking ;)
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So, what's the word, on the new update? Things have reeeaaaalllyyyy died down.
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Are you kidding? The hype train keeps gaining speed like it has never before.
There is no official ETA, but it's any day now. (but it also could be a few more weeks.)
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ANY DAY?!?!?! OMG I'M GONNA DIE!
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I would call that unfounded speculation. As always, the answer is SoonTM and there are no actual dates or deadlines until it's released. I also would suggest this means it's about the point where this topic is locked ;)
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In regards to expanded battles, how many factions can join up against one target? Could the Player, a Hegemony fleet, and a Luddic Church fleet all gang up on a Tri-Tachyon fleet?
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Sure, but they'd both have to be hostile to Tri-Tachyon, or friendly with each other, and neither is true at the moment.
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Sooo... Hegemony got better relationship with Tri-Tachyon, right?
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I can see how what I said might be a bit confusing; what I meant is neither of "both hostile to Tri-Tachyon" and "friendly with each other" is true.
So, no, no thawing of relations, although one might consider the current hostilities more of a flare-up of a cold-war style conflict than a permanent state of affairs.
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although one might consider the current hostilities more of a flare-up of a cold-war style conflict than a permanent state of affairs.
Mh, I wonder what could have caused that. I hope something story relevant for the play to discover ;D
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although one might consider the current hostilities more of a flare-up of a cold-war style conflict than a permanent state of affairs.
Mh, I wonder what could have caused that. I hope something story relevant for the play to discover ;D
Tri-Tachyon chairman lost ?500,000 to the High Hegemon Administrator in a poker game and refused to pay up.
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although one might consider the current hostilities more of a flare-up of a cold-war style conflict than a permanent state of affairs.
Mh, I wonder what could have caused that. I hope something story relevant for the play to discover ;D
Tri-Tachyon chairman lost ?500,000 to the High Hegemon Administrator in a poker game and refused to pay up.
I bet it was probably more like 50. ;)
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Way late to the party here and didn't have time to read through everything, but just wanted to comment on the officer portraits. I thought it might be nice to have a rank insignia corresponding to their level and/or faction importance followed by the officer's name in place of the portraits. They seem a bit too large, even taking them into stock for that being a busy screen.
Even with a revamp, I think it could get pretty burdensome to have enough character portrait variety to convey personality, and then if the portrait is distinct enough, say on a faction leader, then it would end up as a picture the player would probably never take as the faction leader would own that face. Maybe if there were a modular system of face portraits.
I think just putting the name in there with a rank or icon, growing in size and detail to represent how badass he is, would go a long way. You will ways remember "Gen P. Burnman"'s onslaught overdriving into and demolishing your flagship, rather than face 17 of 50 from the list.
Either way, the more campaign stuff brought into the combat the better, and seeing the people you interact with at fleet level directly in game really, really goes a long way in connecting the two phases of the game together.
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Just occurred to me while going over the old blog posts:
What if whether a fleet decides to intervene for/against the player is based on the fleet commander's relationship with the player, rather than the faction's?
Is that already the case, and if not, is it desirable?
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Well... Seems deciding to intervene when he/she isn't supposed to is not so desirable lore-wise Deciding not to intervene, however, would make perfect sense. Looking the other way for either reasons, you know.
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Just occurred to me while going over the old blog posts:
What if whether a fleet decides to intervene for/against the player is based on the fleet commander's relationship with the player, rather than the faction's?
Is that already the case, and if not, is it desirable?
Actually, that would sound perfectly reasonable. The relationship to an individual commander / NPC is not affeected much by the overall faction's attitude towards the play, so it would seem perfectly fine for one that you have a good relationship with to simply "miss" you.
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Just occurred to me while going over the old blog posts:
What if whether a fleet decides to intervene for/against the player is based on the fleet commander's relationship with the player, rather than the faction's?
Is that already the case, and if not, is it desirable?
Actually, that would sound perfectly reasonable. The relationship to an individual commander / NPC is not affeected much by the overall faction's attitude towards the play, so it would seem perfectly fine for one that you have a good relationship with to simple "miss" you.
Yep looking the other way is fine. Whether he/she doesn't want to help you when they normally would, or doesn't want to fight you when they're supposed to.
Opening fire for personal reason, however, is not, I suppose...
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Yep looking the other way is fine. Whether he/she doesn't want to help you when they normally would, or doesn't want to fight you when they're supposed to.
Opening fire for personal reason, however, is not, I suppose...
it would probably depend on which faction that commander belongs to: it would make sense for a pirate or mercenary to attack the player due to a personal grudge, even if the player has a good reputation with Pirates / Independents as a whole. but i doubt Tri-Tachyon or Hegemony authorities would be happy with one of their fleet commanders wasting precious resources on a personal vendetta.
i agree that not attacking for personal reasons would be more believable, even for factions with a clear hierachy.
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Ah, yes. Forgot pirates and indies. They lack commanding hierachy right?
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You mean they would ask you for a hefty sum of money, as in a cargo inspection? And if you run away, they ask their friends to help hunt you down?
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Ah, yes. Forgot pirates and indies. They lack commanding hierachy right?
As a collective group, yes, pirates and independents lack a unified command hierarchy. However, that does not preclude the existence of command hierarchies within "independents" and "pirates." "Independents" as a group include anarchic, lawless hellholes like Maxios, but they also include relatively organized, reasonably stable polities like New Maxios (which explicitly has its own militia-navy, which presumably has some form of hierarchical command structure); it is not that likely that an officer of the New Maxios militia-navy is going to be as free to attack you on the grounds of personal dislike as some mercenary who operates out of Maxios, and yet both are probably classed as "independents." It's also conceivable for there to be a number of variably-sized, variably-organized cartels, gangs, mafias, whatever, all grouped under "pirates," and at least some of these could have relatively well-defined hierarchies in which the lower-ranked members of the organization would be ill-advised to go against the wishes of the higher-ups without (and possibly even with) good reason. Similarly, whatever groups control the pirate stations could exert some influence; it's unlikely that it'd be advisable for anyone who wants to do business at or operate out of Kanta's Den to attack Kanta's friends, at least not where Kanta is likely to hear about it, for instance.
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Ah, yes. Forgot pirates and indies. They lack commanding hierachy right?
As a collective group, yes, pirates and independents lack a unified command hierarchy. However, that does not preclude the existence of command hierarchies within "independents" and "pirates." "Independents" as a group include anarchic, lawless hellholes like Maxios, but they also include relatively organized, reasonably stable polities like New Maxios (which explicitly has its own militia-navy, which presumably has some form of hierarchical command structure); it is not that likely that an officer of the New Maxios militia-navy is going to be as free to attack you on the grounds of personal dislike as some mercenary who operates out of Maxios, and yet both are probably classed as "independents." It's also conceivable for there to be a number of variably-sized, variably-organized cartels, gangs, mafias, whatever, all grouped under "pirates," and at least some of these could have relatively well-defined hierarchies in which the lower-ranked members of the organization would be ill-advised to go against the wishes of the higher-ups without (and possibly even with) good reason. Similarly, whatever groups control the pirate stations could exert some influence; it's unlikely that it'd be advisable for anyone who wants to do business at or operate out of Kanta's Den to attack Kanta's friends, at least not where Kanta is likely to hear about it, for instance.
This is precisely the kind of stuff why I made that "Factions Fractions" suggestion a few months ago. I would love to see these kinds of distinctions.
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This is precisely the kind of stuff why I made that "Factions Fractions" suggestion a few months ago. I would love to see these kinds of distinctions.
I know we're getting a bit off base with this, but I've LOVE to see subfactions and subfaction relations be the next major way the game expands beyond 0.7.
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This is precisely the kind of stuff why I made that "Factions Fractions" suggestion a few months ago. I would love to see these kinds of distinctions.
I know we're getting a bit off base with this, but I've LOVE to see subfactions and subfaction relations be the next major way the game expands beyond 0.7.
Yes. I kind of agree.
Personally, I would like to be an official soldier in the Hegemony military. Or be one of those guys that collects taxes from trade fleets.
Or instead of starting a new faction, conquer a hostile world in the name of the Hegemony, and be its Governor, while still being allied to Hegemony, and then if you wanted, split into a separate faction at any time.
And then build factories and the planet's industry, the type of fleets they use, the ships they build, the weapons they make.
Tax collecting, exploration, patrols, defense fleet organization.
Officers for Industry, Leadership, Technology, assigned to certain capital ships in your fleet that will benefit the entire fleet.
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This may have already been answered but I couldn't find it anywhere:
Could you clarifiy the matter on reputation affecting which side you can join? Specifically, could you join Pirates in a Pirates vs Hegemony battle if you are Hostile to Hegemony, but Inhospitable to Pirates?