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Author Topic: Raiding Stat Ships  (Read 2758 times)

SafariJohn

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Raiding Stat Ships
« on: June 02, 2018, 10:33:30 PM »

I've seen the term "stat ship" used to describe civ ships here on the forum, and I think the term is sadly apt. Civ ships really only appear in combat during pursuit battles, but at that point losing them is usually just salt on the wound.

So to make bringing along civ ships a challenge, but a fair one, I propose a new battle type — the raid, which takes place before the first normal battle. To keep it straightforward, I suggest these three simple rules:

   - Fleets under Emergency Burn cannot be raided.
   
   - Fleets under Emergency Burn can raid other fleets.
   
   - Fleets with no civ/mothballed ships can raid other fleets (and can't be raided themselves, of course).


For the raid itself, I suggest it take place on a long map like pursuit battles. The initial defenders and civ ships start at the bottom of the map and can retreat off the top of the map, but there the similarity to a pursuit ends. The defenders' reinforcements arrive at the top of the map, while the raiders, who cannot get reinforcements, start at the center of the map. The top/bottom should perhaps be flipped when the player is raiding.

This sounds unfair for the raiders, but they get two major advantages from picking the fight. First, they can retreat off both the left and right sides of the map, making the battle less risky than it might otherwise seem. More importantly, every deployment point the raiders don't use forces the defenders' civ ships to deploy at the start of the battle.

Another consideration when deploying ships to a raid battle is that they cannot participate in the first normal battle of the engagement, if there is one. A small raiding party might siphon off enough defenders to give an outmatched force a fighting chance.


In conclusion, Starsector ships that can't fight still need a reason to show up in combat. If they can't do something helpful then they've gotta be the Load. That's the price for great cargo/fuel/personnel capacity.
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TaLaR

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2018, 11:21:36 PM »

Player will never be raiding though:
  • Raiders won't get loot, unless they fully annihilate opposing side, right? And if I can outright win, why bother with raiding?
  • Emergency Burn is huge waste of supplies and risk of being caught during CR downtime. So in combination with above point, I pay and risk to not get any loot? Yeah, not happening.

Incentives to use it for player are just not there, it's pure harassment technique for enemy side. And a nasty one too:
  • Being able to flatly deny deployment of some crucial ships when enemy raids me (in either raid or main battle) or forcing me to deploy it twice would feel really unfair.
  • Then there is problem of officers - they can't be reassigned between rounds. Even if I have empty ships to fight 2 engagements, without officers they are fodder.

I think it needs quite a few counter-balancers to make defender position viable:
  • Auto-deployed defender ships do not pay base CR cost for round (but can tick down as usual)
  • Defender gets to deploy a few guards with auto-deployed ships (proportional to auto-deploy amount. Or reverse-proportional, see quote at the end of post).
  • Defender knows exact raid composition after auto-deploy ships are determined, but before picking guards
  • You can reassign player and officers before raid (as above) and between rounds
  • (Optional) Guards (start with auto-deploy) and defender reinforcements (from map top) have halved base CR cost for this round

1st is necessary to avoid making raid auto-lose (financially) for defender.
2nd and 3rd are necessary to prevent phase frigates or Hyperion from auto-deleting any civ ships in defender fleet.
4th is just to make multi-round combat viable in general, as currently it isn't.
5th may be pushing it too far in favor of defender, but is worth considering.

Also, what about hybrid ships like Mule, Venture, etc. Do they also get auto-deployed?

More importantly, every deployment point the raiders don't use forces the defenders' civ ships to deploy at the start of the battle.

Also, please not this. It would allow raider to choose between a moderate threat to large amount of ships (few raiders, many targets) and surefire kill of one target (many raiders, one target). Obviously this is unmanageable situation for defender... Unless rest of potential total target pool is filled with guards? Then it seems to make sense.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2018, 11:38:18 PM by TaLaR »
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SafariJohn

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2018, 11:58:46 PM »

You can salvage the debris field after the battle.

I think you misunderstood how the defender deploys. Their initial deployment can be with the civ ships and/or at the top so they can pin the raiders inbetween.

I'll reply to the rest later.

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ZombieM0ses

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2018, 12:15:06 AM »

I think the idea has a solid conceptual basis, but I worry that in practice it would just feel rather gamey unless and until major changes to the 'overworld' mechanics occur. The problem is that when two fleets are hostile and tracking each other, neither one can perform salvage or recovery. This means that profiting from a raid as well as recovering from one both run into the issue of first having to kite and lose the enemy before - predictably - returning to the spot where the raid happened. And that activity is inherently gamey because it doesn't make any sense in a real-world scenario. Unless one of the fleets were forced to retire by some outside force, neither of them would be able to reasonably conduct salvage operations in the warzone in which they are both committed.

Also, I worry that the other reason for raiding; Reducing the enemy's CR by forcing them to commit forces, would more often than not end up being a zero-sum gain. This is problematic since historically the specific goal of raiding in war is to be able to use very cheap forces to unusually great effect by hitting the enemy's vulnerable logistics. A great example of this was the cultivation of British pirates by the English crown against the poorly defended traders of the enemies of England without having to really support said pirates in any meaningful way nor even acknowledge their direct association.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2018, 12:58:21 AM by ZombieM0ses »
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Goumindong

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2018, 02:48:46 AM »

Probably better to just remove stat sticks from the majority of fleet compositions by modifying the cargo and fuel of pirate/exploration combat vessels to negate their need.

Then make civ ships captured in whole when one side has no combat ships remaining
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Megas

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2018, 05:53:12 AM »

Currently, player that wants to go anywhere beyond core worlds (and back) MUST have a tanker because fuel capacity of every other ship is terrible.  I would not want raids unless complete dependence on tankers is removed.  If a tanker gets raided then destroyed, the whole fleet will lose too much fuel and have no way to return.

I agree that raids will be yet another addition to the AI grief list, among Emergency "Gank" Burn and indiscriminate Interdiction Pulse spam, it can use against the player.

P.S.  Tankers should be used to haul a big chunk of fuel to sell at a profit or to supply a base that cannot produce fuel, not have it all guzzled by the supply fleet going from one place to another.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2018, 05:56:27 AM by Megas »
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Megas

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2018, 07:41:10 AM »

Then make civ ships captured in whole when one side has no combat ships remaining
If that means any ship with Civilian-Grade Hull, that can hurt ships that could fight.  I think Shepherd might have that, and if so, it is one the few civilians that can fight in battle (as a carrier) about as well as other early-game frigates.

Also, Venture is not a complete walk-over early in the game.  It is the enemy boss ship of the tutorial.

And of course, Buffalo and Tarsus spam, all with Converted Hangars.  While not optimal, not completely helpless either.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #7 on: June 03, 2018, 10:59:02 AM »

I think the idea has a solid conceptual basis, but I worry that in practice it would just feel rather gamey unless and until major changes to the 'overworld' mechanics occur. The problem is that when two fleets are hostile and tracking each other, neither one can perform salvage or recovery. This means that profiting from a raid as well as recovering from one both run into the issue of first having to kite and lose the enemy before - predictably - returning to the spot where the raid happened. And that activity is inherently gamey because it doesn't make any sense in a real-world scenario. Unless one of the fleets were forced to retire by some outside force, neither of them would be able to reasonably conduct salvage operations in the warzone in which they are both committed.

AI fleets stand down after a battle, so, for the player, getting away should be easy. Also, I don't know what you're talking about it being gamey; putting people in a situation where they have to abandon their goods, then coming back to loot after they leave has been done throughout history. There's probably even a name for it.

the other reason for raiding; Reducing the enemy's CR by forcing them to commit forces, would more often than not end up being a zero-sum gain.

Reducing the enemy's CR is not a reason for raiding, so I would hope it's a zero-sum game.


  • Being able to flatly deny deployment of some crucial ships when enemy raids me (in either raid or main battle) or forcing me to deploy it twice would feel really unfair.
  • Then there is problem of officers - they can't be reassigned between rounds. Even if I have empty ships to fight 2 engagements, without officers they are fodder.

It's meant to be a tough choice, and in my experience ships without officers work just fine. However, I am noticing more problems with the two battle arrangement, so maybe the raid should replace the first normal battle. It's not quite that simple, though, so I'll have to think on it.

Defender knows exact raid composition after auto-deploy ships are determined,

I don't think the defenders should know exactly what the raiders are deploying, but they should definitely see which of their own ships are being auto-deployed. I think simply tagging them "Auto-Deploy" or something on the initial deployment screen would do. Maybe there should be a bar showing how many of the raider's DPs the civ ships are taking up so you can guestimate their strength.

The raiders should probably know what enemy civ ships will be deployed given the available DP.

phase frigates or Hyperion from auto-deleting any civ ships in defender fleet.

I think what I've already said covers the rest, but I'd like to give phase ships a special mention. Hyperion is the Hyperion - it's supposed to be amazing.

Phase ships, while I know they're supposed to be good, are currently as, or even more, godlike than the Hyperion at assassinating ships. I am pretty sure you can defeat the highest level bounties with just an Afflictor, since you only have to kill the target to get the payout. In 0.9 the Harbinger might be even better at it; how many things can survive something that can disrupt shields, mount three Typhoon Reaper Launchers, and turn invincible at will?

It's that last thing, I think, that makes phase ships so powerful in player hands. If the AI could exploit phasing the same way then everyone would be complaining about it.


Also, what about hybrid ships like Mule, Venture, etc. Do they also get auto-deployed?

My intent is that only ships with the civilian tag in Ship_Data.csv are autodeployed. (And mothballed ships.) Mule, Venture, etc. do not have that tag. That the game never explicitly tells us which ships have the civilian tag is a design flaw that should really be remedied.

More importantly, every deployment point the raiders don't use forces the defenders' civ ships to deploy at the start of the battle.

Also, please not this. It would allow raider to choose between a moderate threat to large amount of ships (few raiders, many targets) and surefire kill of one target (many raiders, one target).

Given that, as I said, the defender can deploy ships with the civ ships, I don't think the first situation would be that big a deal. For the latter, I think that could usually only happen when the defenders are already super outnumbered, i.e. they are in deep trouble anyways.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #8 on: June 03, 2018, 12:23:15 PM »

This just seems like another anti player AI boost as they don't have to worry about supply and fuel costs along with losses. Not to mention the player would almost never be able to do it as the AI spams E Burn a ton when being pursued. So effectively this would be limited to only the AI. No thanks
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Megas

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #9 on: June 03, 2018, 12:32:16 PM »

Re: Phase Ships
Harbinger would have less alpha (only three mounts instead of four) and be slower (might need both Unstable Injector and Auxiliary Thrusters to have frigate-like speed).  The advantage Harbinger would have is having thirty Reapers to kill multiple ships instead of eight Reapers that Afflictor can get to kill one or two big ships.

As for Afflictor, getting Entropy Amplifier, the AM Blaster loadout (combined with invulnerability frame exploit) will be even stronger.
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TaLaR

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #10 on: June 03, 2018, 08:46:21 PM »

As for Afflictor, getting Entropy Amplifier, the AM Blaster loadout (combined with invulnerability frame exploit) will be even stronger.

Entropy Amplifier is slightly delayed as all system of it's kind (goes from 0 to 50% effect), to get invulnerability exploit you need to shoot with perfect timing = they are incompatible (you may get a few percents, but not full 50%). Entropy Amplifier can't be used during omni-shield bypass for same reason.

... You can activate EA on approach before phase cloak though, it has some duration. But that won't work against ships with powerful fast hitting long range attacks (TL as primary example).
« Last Edit: June 03, 2018, 08:58:21 PM by TaLaR »
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Megas

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #11 on: June 04, 2018, 05:26:16 AM »

You do not turn on the Amplify when you attack, you do it before your ship approaches.  Most enemy ships do not have long-range attacks.  (This is why I lament Starsector is primarily a melee game and needs more viable long-range attacks.)

Afflictor should be able to use Entropy Amplifer just fine, probably better than Harbinger could.  Harbinger today can do it (although unskilled, it needs both Unstable Injector and Auxiliary Thrusters to get enough speed to bypass enemies like Afflictor and Shade can).  What really cripples Harbinger is it cannot use AM Blasters and must use Mining Blasters instead.  With change to Quantum Disruptor for Harbinger, I plan to use Typhoon Reapers and call it a day.
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TaLaR

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #12 on: June 04, 2018, 07:21:38 AM »

It may be possible to exploit Harbinger with 3 Typhoon Reapers even without QD - http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13455.0 . Though I can't quite get reliable survival with this tactic.
And it doesn't need to be fast to bypass omni shields with Mining Blasters due to same exploit.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Raiding Stat Ships
« Reply #13 on: June 06, 2018, 02:04:05 PM »

However, I am noticing more problems with the two battle arrangement, so maybe the raid should replace the first normal battle. It's not quite that simple, though, so I'll have to think on it.

Having thought about it, the raid being the only battle of the first round of an engagement makes way more sense than that two battle crap. So when choosing to engage, if raiding is possible, the "attacking" side gets to choose whether to raid or to engage normally.

What this means is that the defender can feel free to deploy all their ships to the raid, which makes sense. To help the raiders a bit, I think they should get to disengage freely after the raid. Also, AI raiders would not have to sit around "standing down" afterwards so they have a decent chance to get away.

Edit: bumped post early, heh
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 02:07:13 PM by SafariJohn »
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