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[Inventor Raccoon]

Since their benefits are also provided just by deploying ships in this update (whereas before their bonuses were unique and you could only get them by capturing objectives), they've become less important and often you can completely ignore them with little consequence.

One idea to make objectives more worthwhile in large-scale combat, when the player might have either ECM or co-ordinated maneuvers maxed and are hitting their cap, is to allow the bonus from objectives to add to ECM and extra speed past the player's cap but only up to a hard cap of 30% (just slightly higher than the player's own cap of 25%).

E.G If I'm deploying a lot of ships and are getting the 25% bonus, usually capturing a nav buoy will provide zero benefit. Now I would gain an extra 5% from capturing a nav buoy and maxing at 30% (and capturing any more would result in nothing). If I was missing a rank in the relevant skills I'd max at 20% and be able to capture 2 buoys to get to 30%. Same with ECM.

Another idea to make objectives more relevant against fleets that don't have ECM would be to make the ECM bonus from sensor jammers affect the actual value of the range decrease itself and not the ECM value.

E.G If I'm fielding a lot of ECM ships and have 30% ECM with a 25% cap, the enemy capturing a sensor jammer does nothing (30%-5%=25%). In this case, it'd be 25%-5%=20%, and their capturing of the jammer has an effect on the battle.

[AxleMC131]

<-- Component of the discussion on the Discord channel that led to this suggestion

"Seconded!" 

[Sy]

i'd really like to see this as well.

the mechanical changes to capture points in 0.8 seemed interesting, but in practise often result in several capture points providing literally 0 benefit for either side, regardless of which side holds them. if both my own fleet and my enemy's have capped Nav rating just from skill (or hullmods) already, capturing a Nav point can't even provide an indirect benefit in denying the opponent to boost their own rating. same thing with sufficiently large difference in ECM ratings, which usually happens if one mid-to-late game fleet has the skill and the other doesn't.

capture points don't have to be critically important, and taking skills in part to reduce reliance on them is fine. i just don't like how their effects are reduced to nothing quite frequently.

[Alex]

Made a note here, this sounds good. Have to be careful so this doesn't get overpowered, though - but the 30% hard limit sounds like it'd help out there.

[Gothars]

I think that this small 5% difference would provide no noticeable bonus. I'd go so far as to say it's impossible to provide a global bonus that feels worthwhile without upsetting the balance. If a dozen factors influence a behavior its hard to make any one of them especially noticeable. I mean, ECM/CooMan are passive boni for which you don't have to do anything, while getting objectives always involves micromanagement. The extra effort should be rewarded with extra effect, shouldn't it?

Providing a bonus in a limited radius around the objective has been proposed before. Instead, I suggest to give a heavy bonus in a limited time-frame. Let's say capturing a bouy grants (you the ability to trigger) a global nav pulse cascade that last for ~10s and increases the effect of Coordinated Maneuvers by, like, 50%. Same principle for ECM. The effect then needs something like 3 minutes to recharge. Having several objectives of a type either increases strength/duration of the effect or decreases time needed for recharge.

The effect(s) could be triggered manually via either the map or a shortcut, but that would of course increase necessary micro and make the controls that tiny bit more complicated again. Alternatively, it just triggers automatically after recharge, encouraging you to be in a good position at the right time and maybe even giving a kind of rhythm to the combat.

[TJJ]

Instead, I suggest to give a heavy bonus in a limited time-frame. Let's say capturing a bouy grants (you the ability to trigger) a global nav pulse cascade that last for ~10s and increases the effect of Coordinated Maneuvers by, like, 50%. Same principle for ECM. The effect then needs something like 3 minutes to recharge. Having several objectives of a type either increases strength/duration of the effect or decreases time needed for recharge.

The effect(s) could be triggered manually via either the map or a shortcut, but that would of course increase necessary micro and make the controls that tiny bit more complicated again. Alternatively, it just triggers automatically after recharge, encouraging you to be in a good position at the right time and maybe even giving a kind of rhythm to the combat.

Sounds familiar 

[HELMUT]

The problem with strategic points is either they're too weak and not worth the effort (a bit like now), or too strong and might break the game. I have been thinking about adding different bonus to strategic points through skill perks : +x% damage, -x% CR degradation, etc, to spice things up. Then again, crank the bonus too high and cheesing the AI becomes the norm, or worse, the AI can steamroll the player through sheer number superiority.

Gothars's suggestion is probably the best one i've heard so far. Automatic trigger would probably be... Annoying? Either your ships captures a point too early and waste the bonus, either the enemy captures it and catch the player off-guard with the sudden bonus boost. Manual trigger would at least prevent the first issue, but that add another button to the command screen, and would be noticeably advantage the player than the AI. But in the end, still more enjoyable than what we have now.

More interestingly, a manual trigger button could also open the way for more interesting possibilities. You know, RTS games with some cool global abilities ("nuclear launch detected" and all that) ? I wouldn't be opposed to see something similar(accordingly balanced, of course) in Starsector. And even if Alex isn't willing to put the work in doing elaborated abilities, modders could. Just need the big red button.

[xenoargh]

If there was a point that slowed CR degradation, that would be unique and interesting.  I don't mind Nav Points, except that I want the flat-bonus to speed back.  I want the Command Points to actually do something interesting enough it's worth bothering, like a 25% bonus to CP regen speeds.

Mainly though, right now I just use those points to cheese the AI, which continues to send Frigate to their doom when I use forces to kill them in detail as they try to take the points.

[Tartiflette]

Bonus XP for you and your officers when capturing points? Extra salvage? Extra crew recovery?

[Inventor Raccoon]

Bonus XP for you and your officers when capturing points? Extra salvage? Extra crew recovery?

That doesn't stop the problem that there are certain situations where capturing objectives becomes entirely pointless. If you're already level 40 (or whatever the cap will eventually be) and your officers are all 20, the extra XP is useless.

[Alex]

I think that this small 5% difference would provide no noticeable bonus. I'd go so far as to say it's impossible to provide a global bonus that feels worthwhile without upsetting the balance. If a dozen factors influence a behavior its hard to make any one of them especially noticeable. I mean, ECM/CooMan are passive boni for which you don't have to do anything, while getting objectives always involves micromanagement. The extra effort should be rewarded with extra effect, shouldn't it?

Providing a bonus in a limited radius around the objective has been proposed before. Instead, I suggest to give a heavy bonus in a limited time-frame. Let's say capturing a bouy grants (you the ability to trigger) a global nav pulse cascade that last for ~10s and increases the effect of Coordinated Maneuvers by, like, 50%. Same principle for ECM. The effect then needs something like 3 minutes to recharge. Having several objectives of a type either increases strength/duration of the effect or decreases time needed for recharge.

The effect(s) could be triggered manually via either the map or a shortcut, but that would of course increase necessary micro and make the controls that tiny bit more complicated again. Alternatively, it just triggers automatically after recharge, encouraging you to be in a good position at the right time and maybe even giving a kind of rhythm to the combat.

This is totally your thing, isn't it? I seem to remember something awfully similar from a little while back.

To me, anything that encourages the player to check the map more often doesn't align with the other stuff in combat.

Taking a step back re: objectives, they exist entirely to give you, and the AI, a reason to split up your forces. I'm not saying the current solution is ideal, but I think any ideas about how to adjust them have to keep that goal in mind. Heck, I'm open to removing objectives completely, provided there's some other way to achieve that design goal. To put another way, the feature isn't really "objectives" but "reason to split forces apart"; objectives are an implementation detail.

[xenoargh]

Other ways to achieve goal:

1.  Force civilian craft to deploy alongside combat craft; player has to simultaneously defend those fleet assets whilst attacking enemy.

2.  Put capturable objects into the game that activate and hold an area effectively (this was done in Vacuum with the first Stations and it was fun and interesting).  Say it's "Domain tech" that your fleet "hacks", and voila, stuff that's a bonus defensively is a thing.

3. Put capturable objects that reward the player in non-combat ways, such as Credit drops, Blueprints, or even something that affects capture / repair, that incentivize the player to hold / keep the locations but don't have an immediate effect on combat balance.

4.  Make battlefields smaller again, so that this is a non-issue (I don't like this one, but hey).

5.  Put magical nano-dots onto the battlefield that give ships that eat them capture them huge bonuses for a short time period.  Kind of like Pac Man in Space.  Keep generating new ones, so that there's always a good reason to roam around, rather than the usual reason of, "gotta kill 'em all so that darn Surrender happens before my CR is burned away".

[SafariJohn]

If spreading out the action is desirable (and it isn't happening organically), then there's lots of ways to systemize it. I think I've suggested some stuff along those lines in the past, albeit at a higher scale, but whatever.

Just to throw some ideas out:

- Penalize ships that are close together. Range reduction, damage-dealt reduction, or something else. Maybe pair it with a damage-received reduction to get attackers to spread out and defenders to bunch up.

- Nearby ships push each other away. Bigger ships push harder and farther. I don't know if this would really help

...

Well, I ran out of ideas quickly.

The real trick is communicating whatever the implementation is to the player, and, more importantly, making sure the AI can understand it (or at least seem to).

[Megas]

Nav Buoys and Sensor Jammers should be more worthwhile

I would suggest the alternative of removing them.  But since the topic is about improving them...

Taking a step back re: objectives, they exist entirely to give you, and the AI, a reason to split up your forces. I'm not saying the current solution is ideal, but I think any ideas about how to adjust them have to keep that goal in mind. Heck, I'm open to removing objectives completely, provided there's some other way to achieve that design goal. To put another way, the feature isn't really "objectives" but "reason to split forces apart"; objectives are an implementation detail.

As long as the player can focus-fire on a target, that will generally preferable than to divide firepower, often to the point of ordering Eliminate (or Fighter Strike) to destroy priority targets.  The one time I remember letting my fleet split-up is when I run frigate mobs of about 40, and only twelve of so can attack a target at once (though homing missiles passing through ships help for a time).

I guess one reason why weapon ranges in general are so short is the make it harder for everyone to focus-fire on one target if the ships are forced to spread out.  Then again, that seems to make everyone, especially AI, gather around for the infamous death ball fleet.

Other ways to achieve goal:

1.  Force civilian craft to deploy alongside combat craft; player has to simultaneously defend those fleet assets whilst attacking enemy.

2.  Put capturable objects into the game that activate and hold an area effectively (this was done in Vacuum with the first Stations and it was fun and interesting).  Say it's "Domain tech" that your fleet "hacks", and voila, stuff that's a bonus defensively is a thing.

3. Put capturable objects that reward the player in non-combat ways, such as Credit drops, Blueprints, or even something that affects capture / repair, that incentivize the player to hold / keep the locations but don't have an immediate effect on combat balance.

1 may be cruel.  Normally, I would say that I would just bring hybrids that can fight, but that is not really possible since most fleets (that are not bumming around core space for faction warfare) need a tanker, plus hybrids are not great at fighting past a certain point.

However, if ships can retreat the way they came, then player would retreat them ASAP.  That is what I did during 0.5.x when small battles auto-deployed all.  It would be a CP tax to keep strategic assets safe.

Plus, another defense for that is to bring so many ships that it is impossible to deploy all.

3 sounds like something.  The rewards of keeping objectives could occur after battle.
* Deployment costs are reduced.  Sort of like free standing down and recovering CR.
* Salvage multiplier.  (I have save-scummed fights before for rare stuff.)

Like Xenoargh, I use points mainly to cheese AI.

The +25% bonus from (one) Comm Relay is small enough that I ignore it, maybe it would be worth it at +50%.  Currently, I never bother with Comm Relays unless I can cheese the AI with it.

His idea to slow CR decay is a nice one too, although that may be of limited usefulness once the loot bug fix is in.  In which case, better to retreat all then fight round two.  Currently, I do not retreat from battles because I lose so much (potentially rare) loot (but not the XP) if I do.

[AxleMC131]

I think Alex's point of why objectives are a thing is wholly valid, but I don't think the mechanics for objectives need to be any more complex to make them "more worthwhile" in most cases. Splitting a fleet up makes an awful lot of sense to me in large combat engagements, and I think that can easily done by making the current objectives more effective without adding any additional features whatsoever.


Nonetheless, I'll throw in some feedback to some of the suggestions here so far.

- Force-deploying non-combat ships is just mean. That makes sense in a retreat scenario, but not in any other situation, and as Megas said, you can just immediately retreat all of them.

- In contrast, non-combat rewards (bonus XP, bonus salvage, etc) sound much more interesting, but those would be player-only rewards. If the AI ends the fight with such a point captured, what bonus do they get? It's a nice concept, but at present a highly assymetrical one. Yes I know a lot of the player-versus-AI gameplay is assymetrical anyway, but it feels like a missed opportunity in this case.

- Reducing CR degradation? That's a nice one. Though yes, only really useful in limited situations.

- Objectives unlocking short-duration but heavy abilities sound interesting, but perhaps not the sort of thing that would synergize well with Starsector. That sort of thing is campaign-map-level functionality, and something that might be a bit strange in combat... Then again, being able to trigger an Interdiction Pulse in the combat map could be rather exhilerating! However, it's still one more piece of micromanagement, which at least for me is not something I enjoy, though quite a few people do.


Couple of highly random suggestions of my own which have had very little thought put into them:

- Additional objective type in the form of station-esk defense platforms; a stationary automated gun platform that starts the fight idle and can be captured by a side to activate its weaponry. Obviously this could snowball extremely fast (once it's captured and firing, how the hell does the other side get close enough to recapture it???), so if I was to employ such a mechanic the stations would have limited, slow-firing, long-range armament (cough cough Pilums cough). Enough to warrant capturing them for the additional fire support, but not enough to ward off an invader unless defended by other combat ships.

- Relevant objectives grant a much heavier bonus (maybe +15-20% top speed/ECM), but only in a short range around them as opposed to the whole fleet. Not sure how this would stack in relation to the various player skills though, and could be heavily abusable.