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[vagrant]

Given one of the issues with frigates late game is they are fragile in the face of cruiser and capitals, what if you had a way of mitigating that fragility which didn't work for larger ships.  I believe Alex was looking into retaining all weapons on a ship that is destroyed but recovered.  Imagine taking that a bit farther and add a method for recovering a certain number of your lost frigates in pristine condition after combat with a reasonable amount of CR restored?

For example, imagine for every Salvage rig in your fleet, you were guaranteed 1 of your lost frigates back with no (extra) D-mods, no loss of weapons, maybe simply down by deployment x2 worth of CR.  Or if there was a slow, support capital ship which did something similar for all your lost frigates (imagine a carrier but on an even larger scale, like a frigate factory ship).  At which point while there is still opportunity cost in deploying frigates, the annoyance of flying a fleet around to simply restock frigates goes away.

Now the frigate's role becomes that of an expendable ship for dangerous tactics, like distract that Onslaught over there while I finish up this Legion over here.  Would that be sufficient of an end game use?

I'd like it if this was an expensive hullmod and mutually exclusive with converted hangar (or any hangar?) too. Maybe exclude destroyers, as well from equipping it?

Also, a potential limitation could be that the Salvage Rig (or other eligible ship) must select a SPECIFIC frigate in the player' current fleet, and that like installing major modifications to a ship, the process of creating a frigate-backup-on-demand is labor intensive and must occur while docked.

So this way players
a) aren't dependent on only using the salvage rig for this feature
b) can make interesting choices re: fighters vs frigates
c) can't just hotswap their frigate-backup-on-demands between each and every encounter.

[Hiruma Kai]

I'd like it if this was an expensive hullmod and mutually exclusive with converted hangar (or any hangar?) too. Maybe exclude destroyers, as well from equipping it?

Also, a potential limitation could be that the Salvage Rig (or other eligible ship) must select a SPECIFIC frigate in the player' current fleet, and that like installing major modifications to a ship, the process of creating a frigate-backup-on-demand is labor intensive and must occur while docked.

So this way players
a) aren't dependent on only using the salvage rig for this feature
b) can make interesting choices re: fighters vs frigates
c) can't just hotswap their frigate-backup-on-demands between each and every encounter.

The way I imagined the interface working was either simply having the pristine frigate show up in the normal recovery window (and randomly determined out of the ones you've lost), or alternatively to provide more control, provide a recovery window step before the main recovery window, which just presents all the frigates you lost.  You pick a number up to or less than your allowance and get those back with no additional D-mods and some reasonable CR left, then continue to the normal recovery screen, where you might recover the remaining frigates along with everything else normally (i.e. with usual number of D-mods and zero CR).

Locking it to a particular frigate sounds difficult to do given the current interface.  Also, given we have the ability to change ship configurations in deep space at the cost of CR, its not really possible to limit the choice to while docked only.

The way I see it, you're using your superior salvage ships to literally collect all of the frigate parts, and reprocessing the ruined parts on the fly, rather than a completely new build like we do with fighters, as then you should be able to just build more frigates beyond what you started with.  So you just point your salvage ship at the destroyed frigate right after battle, so no need to pre-designate.

[Chronosfear]

My 5 Cent.

to "unlimited" officers:
Why not add "subordinates" directly attached to the specific officer and simply "added or removed" with a button while docked at a shipyard. (need more than that .. now its just plain simple)
The number of subordinates is dependent on the ship the officer is commanding and increases the salary of that officers.
Also while not having not enough subordinates (eg. change the ship of the officer midspace) give it a reduction in maximum CR depended on the % of subordinates missing or something


Could also add those subordinates for the player itself.

--------------

As long a bigger AI-Fleets yield ~2 BBs and several cruisers, we should not increase the cost ob BBs (0.8 wise.. other we will see) It will only punish the player since they have to care about supplies.
We need to give frigates and maybe destroyers another reason to be used ... I'm not entirely sure how to achieve that.
I always thought about some sort of evasion% based on the ship class vs. large weapons (but that is to random and irritating)

...
hmm:
give ships that retreated from a battlefield a timer based on the size while frigates way smaller than BBs. after that they can be redeployed without a 2nd hit on CR (=free deployment)
(hull and armor damage stays as when it retreated while missiles are refilled) Systems with limited charges per battle (not the recharging ones) = Autoforge may not be available again.
Then you only have to teach the AI to use this "buff"

and maybe give us a pre-battle config how ships should behave (that is why I like http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13199.0 (Autonomous ships mod))

[FooF]

Interesting ideas.

I get what Alex is saying in that Frigates are by design not meant to be useful in a straight-up slugfest when capitals and cruisers are abundant. It's a square peg in a round hole. I think there is an underlying rock-paper-scissor assumption where frigates, due to speed and maneuverability, are supposed to counter slow/lumbering capitals. I don't think this is the case in the game nor should it be.

I've advocated giving frigates a role in large-scale battles by creating opportunistic targets of some type. An Onslaught might not be able to get behind the lines to disrupt an AWACS-type target having some support role (not currently in the game, just a hypothetical) but a few frigates could be blockade runners and take down a soft target (unless said target is given escorts!). That kind of tactical element currently isn't in the game but it would give frigates a niche.

That said, I agree with the sentiment that speed and the ability to quickly traverse the map is not really a great benefit right now. There's no ground to hold or points of interest to defend that have a significant impact on the battle. That's where a nimble frigate would find its role in a huge battlefield as opposed to the larger ships. Until such a thing exists, if it ever does, Frigates are just smaller combat ships that have limited usefulness in a big fight. Positioning is key in this game but Armor also exists, as does directional Shields that can shrug off frigate-grade firepower.

The idea of Frigates being "expendable" via Salvage Rigs is interesting. Knowing that I can lose a few frigates in a fight without having "lasting" damage to my fleet is a good incentive to deploy them. However, I think that could be perks of using Frigates, in general. Perhaps its skill-based or fleet composition-based (i.e. the salvage rigs) but Frigates being expendable as part of their "class" (size) gives them something that Destroyers and above would not enjoy. Not only could Frigates have much higher recovery rates (in general) but their repair rates could be high and their repair costs could be low. Losing them would be "normal" as would recovering/repairing them. This would also encourage the new/early-game player as they lose ships in the beginning of the learning curve. If they learn that a Frigate isn't that hard to repair/replace, they won't reload every time they lose their starter Kite. Even in such a scenario as the above, frigate swarms can't win the day because pound-for-pound, they're still inferior to the larger ships.

[Schwartz]

After this last round of battles where a single frigate saved my hide several times by holding off a redacted capital while we were whittling down the other, I can only reiterate that they are universally useful. They need to be fast, that's all.

[Cik]

IMO this sort of stuff (not speaking to your ideas specifically; I remember reading a number of threads on similar topics) too easily shades into "cure worse than disease" territory. That is, it gets complicated, has unintended consequences, is awkward to explain to the player/provide proper UI support for the mechanic/for the player to actually interact with, and so on. All this stuff sounds great in theory but consider how much of a pain it is to just get a relatively-very-simple "retreat scenario" to work well. Until/unless that's sorted, anything more complicated seems like asking for trouble just in principle.

Deathballs generally tend to... not actually be deathballs, anyway. That is, unless it's mostly carriers. Other ships are more effective spread out in a line, and that's what they tend to do, so *to some extent* the spreading-out that objectives are meant to encourage (and, yes, aren't very successful at) happens naturally.

perhaps you and I have a different idea of what a deathball is? what i mean by deathball is that both sides generally ignore any sort of larger strategic maneuvering or terrain holding, go to the center of the map and determine the victor by shooting at each other in a tight a ball as possible (respecting the fact that you can't have nonfighters on top of each other) in current SS, the ideal formation is just the tightest possible formation that concentrates the most possible firepower forward (as you never have to fear any sort of strategic flanking maneuver) gunboats are strictly superior because you can count on the fact that you will be in your element in 99% of battles and those who trade firepower for maneuverability or strategic redeployment speed always lose the trade in the line fights as speed (under a certain value) is mostly useless in actual combat. guns are accurate that anything bigger than a certain size and under a certain speed will be hit 99.99..% of the time.

there are no weapons or tactics that force the player(s) or AI to actually spread itself out and control territory. this is what i mean by "deathball" in this particular situation, there is no role for any type of ship who's primary purpose is NOT maximizing firepower on target, which is why frigates are not good- that shouldn't be a frigate's primary purpose and indeed in the game it isn't. it's primary purpose is objective capping (currently mostly ineffective at providing any sort of benefit) force concentration (AI just doesn't maneuver well enough for this to happen reliably) and strategic support (there are many reasons this doesn't really work and the list is too long to go into here)

i guess perhaps our philosophy is different. when i ask the question "should the optimal battlefield strategy to be "hold W, select autofire, win/lose based on firepower disparity"? my answer is no. you have this entire layer of real time strategy in the game that's effectively pointless right now as 1) you never have to actually give orders to anything to win, and giving orders generally doesn't noticeably improve AI effectiveness or behavior anyway and 2) there is no reason to really distribute your forces in any actual formation or distribution. the ad hoc deathball that forms is enough to do the job and there's no ability or even point to forming any sort of actual strategy.

which seems to me to be a waste of the game's potential personally. the SHMUP aspects of the game have improved noticeably in the last couple patches, but the tactical gameplay has advanced not at all (or even gone in reverse i would argue in several ways with the addition of skills/officers)

for me personally, some novel deployments to spice up the battles is important so the battle(s) do not feel exactly the same every time. how about some mixed up deployments or battlefield hazards?

if i had to name the primary reason that battles in the game take on this form, i would probably say it's the lack of a sensor model that can support more ambiguity and make scouting a little more beneficial. the reason you have picket ships in the first place is that you actually don't know where the enemy is the majority of the time. you want screens (smaller, faster ships) to make sure your heavy stuff doesn't blunder directly into torpedo boats, destroyers or submarines that will imperil you and take advantage of their close range / speed advantages to wreck you.

if you create a WWII naval battle, and assume that everyone can see each other all the time, what you get is exactly what happens in game: everything below a battleship is at best second (third, fourth, fifth etc) fiddle as the battleship's advantages (impenetrable armor, huge displacement, large reserves of ammo, complicated over-the-horizon targeting, big ass guns) melt everything else who's purpose ISN'T just throwing the biggest amount of lead humanly possible.

anyway, the possibilities for improvement are endless in this area. i just hope it gets attention as nobody but me seems to care about it, rip.

[intrinsic_parity]

IMO this sort of stuff (not speaking to your ideas specifically; I remember reading a number of threads on similar topics) too easily shades into "cure worse than disease" territory. That is, it gets complicated, has unintended consequences, is awkward to explain to the player/provide proper UI support for the mechanic/for the player to actually interact with, and so on. All this stuff sounds great in theory but consider how much of a pain it is to just get a relatively-very-simple "retreat scenario" to work well. Until/unless that's sorted, anything more complicated seems like asking for trouble just in principle.

I think the problems with the retreat scenario are intrinsic to the fact that it only occurs when one side is totally outmatched and wants to run away. Thats going to have a lot negative consequences inherently, not because of any balance or design decisions. Retreaters all have their backs turned, slow ships (particularly civilian ships) are unable to escape, etc. It's never fun for the player on either side because it's either a mop up chore or a total loss. If the player has any chance of winning in a fight, they will save scum in a conventional battle, and avoid losing civilian ships (or put another way, if you can successfully retreat without losing much, you could have won a straight up fight with some save scumming). There is no upside to retreating unless you give the retreating player some major advantage they wouldn't have in a normal fight (which makes no sense). It's always going to be a boring slaughter.

Deathballs generally tend to... not actually be deathballs, anyway. That is, unless it's mostly carriers. Other ships are more effective spread out in a line, and that's what they tend to do, so *to some extent* the spreading-out that objectives are meant to encourage (and, yes, aren't very successful at) happens naturally.

you have this entire layer of real time strategy in the game that's effectively pointless right now as 1) you never have to actually give orders to anything to win, and giving orders generally doesn't noticeably improve AI effectiveness or behavior anyway and 2) there is no reason to really distribute your forces in any actual formation or distribution. the ad hoc deathball that forms is enough to do the job and there's no ability or even point to forming any sort of actual strategy.

I'm inclined to agree with Cik. In my experience, the only way ships really die (in a relatively even fight) is by being isolated and locally outgunned. The optimal strategy is therefore to stay tightly grouped (forming a tightly grouped line is still more or less a death ball). The strategy element is mostly lost. I actually use my orders to try and ensure that my fleet stays tightly grouped with escort orders and one assault order on an objective. Trying to spread out/ control objectives is actively bad.

I have tried many times to get spread out attacks to work and here is my general experience:
If the AI is allowed (or ordered) to spread out, they will form small groups that stick together. The battle then breaks down into a bunch of smaller fights between small groups of ships. This is fine in general but the player doesn't have enough control to save ships once they are in a bad position, meaning if a larger force of enemies encounters your small group, you will lose those ships. The optimal strategy is just to have them all together so they never get in a bad position. I think this also partially because the AI ignores my orders (if I try to order a ship to reposition to help a vulnerable ship, they usually ignore and keep fighting whatever ship they are currently fighting). Also sometimes if I try to order ships to run away (by ordering them to some location far away), they will not immediately back up. Maybe improving the AI's ability to disengage from a fight and follow orders would help, but right now, orders don't do much and the player has little control of what happens in combat beyond their own ship, so having their fleet stay tightly grouped together is the lowest risk way to play and allows the player to be close enough to all ships to come to their aid.

TLDR: Ships spreading out drastically reduces the players ability to influence what happens so the player is always incentivized to keep things close. The player wants to control the fight, not leave it in the hands of the AI  and the RNG of where ships wander to at the beginning of the battle.

[Alex]

I think the problems with the retreat scenario are intrinsic to the fact that it only occurs when one side is totally outmatched and wants to run away.

That's a fair point.

The optimal strategy is therefore to stay tightly grouped (forming a tightly grouped line is still more or less a death ball)

If that's how you want to define it, sure, but a battle line in a large battle can span a considerable portion of the map, is often a more beneficial arrangement than an actual ball (more surface area, less jostling), and also one that's more interesting to participate in for the player. To me that's an important enough distinction to make, since that's what we're after here - situations that are more interesting tactically.

(Edit: I just want to add that while grouping up may in some sense/situations be "optimal", you can definitely do things in other ways, too. Even with tough fights, I often end up finishing them with ships spread out on the map, entirely in the absence of objectives. Often it's a case of "hmm, clump of my ships broke off and is in trouble" which creates a local advantage for me, or their opponents are in trouble, which means I can play more defensive and there's a solid chance they'll come out on top. It really can work out nicely.)

(And another thing worth adding is that how the "admiral" AI deploys/manages stuff in .8 probably has to do with the perceived effectiveness of grouping up...)

TLDR: Ships spreading out drastically reduces the players ability to influence what happens so the player is always incentivized to keep things close. The player wants to control the fight, not leave it in the hands of the AI and the RNG of where ships wander to at the beginning of the battle.

I mean, that's definitely true. Isn't it also a pretty good argument against adding mechanics that force the player to split their ships?

IMO the argument *for* it is that splitting ships may create different tactical situations, which is good. But just splitting ships for the sake of it isn't necessarily good; i.e. if we've got several nearby "clumps" or line-sections within reasonable range from each other, that goal is more or less accomplished, and splitting ships more still just adds to downsides of doing it.

Improvements to orders could certainly be good, though - and there's a lot of that in 0.9, especially to do with improved (and still safe) order-following.

[Cik]

ultimately what the players can do whatever they want with their ships, the issue is that currently there is one strategy that is always best (and it's particularly brainless) if you could feasibly play a wide game and win (and build your fleet to do it) the deathball would not be a significant problem.

the game does not model many of the things that force a more reasonable fleet stance- in particular the relatively fixed nature of battlefields (very little unpredictable/substantive terrain) and extremely predictable enemy deployments mean that you never need to bother figuring out where the enemy actually is because they're always going to be in the same place, more or less. there are also no weapons that are really capable of hurting medium+ sized formations of ships, meaning packing more ships into an area is always an advantage down to the point where the rearward ships have to flex to maintain LOF.

in which case you just get a packed line (where most non-line ships are again useless)

are there any plans to look at implementing a more holistic deployment system that can handle shaking up the deployment and taking into account character/player skill / ambushes / terrain / ship strategic mobility etc?

[intrinsic_parity]

If that's how you want to define it, sure, but a battle line in a large battle can span a considerable portion of the map, is often a more beneficial arrangement than an actual ball (more surface area, less jostling), and also one that's more interesting to participate in for the player. To me that's an important enough distinction to make, since that's what we're after here - situations that are more interesting tactically.

I guess I don't really consider it a tactical distinction because the player has no control over exactly how the AI form up, but yes there is a big difference between ball and line. My distinction is more ' are the ships close enough that player can protect them easily or not'. If your entire fleet is close enough that you can protect them and they can all help each other very quickly, then it is more or less a death ball imo.

On a related note, it is very annoying when playing a large slow ship with range (paragon) and friendlies sit in front of you so you can't shoot (the drawback of a ball formation). Any chance that can be adjusted? Especially small ships like destroyers at the beginning of the battle, they are faster so they end up in front of the big slow ships and then they don't get out of the way well.

(And another thing worth adding is that how the "admiral" AI deploys/manages stuff in .8 probably has to do with the perceived effectiveness of grouping up...)

Yeah that sounds like a it would influence the issue a lot. Is that changing in .9?

I mean, that's definitely true. Isn't it also a pretty good argument against adding mechanics that force the player to split their ships?

IMO the argument *for* it is that splitting ships may create different tactical situations, which is good. But just splitting ships for the sake of it isn't necessarily good; i.e. if we've got several nearby "clumps" or line-sections within reasonable range from each other, that goal is more or less accomplished, and splitting ships more still just adds to downsides of doing it.

Improvements to orders could certainly be good, though - and there's a lot of that in 0.9, especially to do with improved (and still safe) order-following.

I would say I want there to be interesting tactical decisions about where to send your fleet to gain an advantage, and the current lack of control makes that more or less never true. Its hard to judge the current incentives to split (control points) because the lack of control makes splitting not feasible/consistent, regardless of how advantageous it is. If orders are significantly improved, that is very encouraging. I agree that forcing the player to split their fleet when they cannot effectively control it is bad. I just don't like that the best decision is more or less always the same currently.

I would like to see control points made more significant to make the advantage of splitting more significant. Maybe maybe the bonuses stronger but AOE so that there are actual positional considerations after you capture a point (that's probably been suggested before).

[Blaine]

Also, PLEASE don't add yet another "F*** the player" thing by making caps more expensive. For one it does NOT address the issue of frigates being near useless, baring special ships like the Tempest and the Afflictor. The other is that the AI doesn't care about costs, once again... >.> , and will happily bring two or three caps to a fight wile I STRUGGLE to get ONE out there.

I agree wholeheartedly. I'm not saying there shouldn't ever be any additional balancing, but in the endgame, your fuel and supplies are already hoovered up on the scale of tons per second. I know a lot of you hardcore Starsector veterans don't see this as a big deal, but I believe it is. Meanwhile, the AI (using high-end bounties as a touchstone) survives on evaporated unicorn tears, and can and will bring two to three capital ships to a fight. If there are two to three AI capitals, the rest of the AI fleet will usually be pretty sane; but if there's only one capital, then to compensate there will typically be a much larger number of destroyers and frigates. I remember a recent bounty where there were at least eight enemy Medusas.

As someone mentioned previously, that's a change that could help both performance and frigates: Alter enemy fleets so that they don't contain eight to ten destroyers and a dozen or so frigates.

One possibility to help retain some frigate usefulness (that may not be appropriate for Starsector, but I'll throw it out anyway) could be to give frigates a 20% "dodge bonus" versus cruisers, and 40% versus capital ships. Very simply, a percentage of hits simply miss them to represent abstracted agility. There could even be a frigate-specific dodge bonus hull mod in the same way there are targeting computer mods for cruisers and capitals. Alternatively, the dodge bonus could apply to medium (20%) and large (40%) turrets rather than to the ships that have these turrets equipped, although that would interfere somewhat with the balancing of ships that fit weapons that are oversized for their class.

Personally, I still find some use for frigates in my current endgame run as escorts and to quickly capture objectives. The Monitor that I use for escort duty has yet to either run out of peak performance or be disabled. The Tempests I use to capture objectives will certainly run out of peak performance before the end of the battle, but by then it's not a big deal; and occasionally they're destroyed, and I just eat the cost (around $55k on average to restore and replace weapons).

[Megas]

No ghost evasion, please!  That would be so aggravating, enough to smash a keyboard or screen in frustration!

Fuel is a big deal, I have probably about five or six capitals in my endgame fleet, mostly the haulers (i.e., Atlas and Prometheus) when I raid fringe systems for bounties and/or Remnants.  Capitals are already expensive (because they are big gas guzzlers, including the haulers).  Meanwhile, AI does not care about resources, and can spawn unlimited replacement fleets anywhere it wants.

[Blaine]

No ghost evasion, please!  That would be so aggravating, enough to smash a keyboard or screen in frustration!

I knew some people probably wouldn't like that particular suggestion, but that's a little extreme and I don't really understand why.

Regardless of what is done (if anything) to make frigates more useful and survivable, you can't have it both ways. If you want your cruisers and capitals to effortlessly mow down frigates, then the enemy will pretty much be able to do the same to yours. While piloting my Onslaught, usually the most annoying thing about frigates is that they're blocking some of my shots that are meant for a destroyer or cruiser, which means they're only slightly more threatening than floating debris. There are exceptions of course, torpedoes and the like, but those aren't too common.

[Megas]

My main gripe with frigates and many destroyers is too short peak performance in endgame battles.  I do not want to burn CP after CP sending small bleeding ships off the map.  Also, lack of shot range if I am missing ITU.

If I use clunkers, survival is a minor concern as long as rare weapons (i.e., anything not commonly found in Open Market, pirates' Black Market, or loot from pirate ships) are not lost.  Currently, if I lose Falcon/Eagle/Dominator with (D) mods and open market weapons, I do not care.  If I lose my undamaged Hyperion or Paragon with rare weapons, that is an automatic game reload because I do not want to spend possibly hours grinding for replacements.

Shots randomly phasing through ships would be aggravating.  I have seen players cry foul and throw tantrums (and occasionally abuse the arcade cabinet) when opponents abuse invulnerability frames in fighting games or whenever the player attacks first but the enemy ignores and hits the player in a hack-and-slash or beat-em-up game.  Or perhaps when your ship gets destroyed because the shot hit the hitbox but not the visible sprite.  I would imagine a player piloting a big ship, fires plasma cannon at a small target (fighter or frigate).  Shot was aimed perfectly and would cleanly hit the target, but if the shot phases through (due to random dice roll and no obvious sign like phase cloak), you can bet that the player will feel ripped off and maybe get angry.

P.S.  I have seen the suggestion of randomly phasing shots through fighters before (which I also oppose), but I do not remember seeing that suggested for frigates also before this topic.

[Schwartz]

Making the Retreat order not cost any CP would be a nice indirect way to boost frigate fleets.