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Author Topic: Balance, skills and general musings  (Read 23968 times)

intrinsic_parity

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Re: Balance, skills and general musings
« Reply #105 on: December 07, 2018, 09:29:26 AM »

You're making it sound like checking how many carriers the enemy has is difficult.

There's fog of war so you actually don't always know how many carriers the enemy has, unless you want the AI to become omniscient, but that's not even the point. The AI has to decide what to do about that. How many carriers is too many? That depends on so many things. You're acting like the AI is a human and if it just has all the information, it is trivial to determine the correct decision. It's not even trivial for a human to determine what the correct decision is in these situations, as evidenced by all the times players make mistakes and lose battles/ships. If humans can't figure out the correct decision consistently, they will never create a computer program to make the 'correct' decision.

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If you're low on PD ammo, check if friendly ships have enough and stick close.
Yeah but how much is 'too low' and how much do friendlies need to have, and how close should you stick. All of those answers are super situational, and the answer may not be clear even with all the information.

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Positioning is not an issue if ships keep tight formations, and there are 4 boundries one can (or should be able to) retreat.
Ships regularly get split off/isolated in combat. You can't just assume positioning or the AI will fail when that assumption is not true. You have to design for every possible situation. 'Assume good positioning' is not a valid design decision.


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That can be said about every feature one doesn't like.
But it's almost exclusively said about features that provide very little benefit and require a vast amount of dev time to make moderately functional.

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In older versions ammo was displayed right next to the weapons/bank. There were no issues.
So I have to repeatedly open the map, and then target select every ship in my fleet to check their ammo levels? Great UI design, no issues.


If you really think this is so easy, go make the AI and post a mod in the forum. I'd love to see it.
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TrashMan

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Re: Balance, skills and general musings
« Reply #106 on: December 08, 2018, 07:02:49 AM »

Mostly I agree with you in this thread, and appreciate you digging up (nevermind where from) the discussions in the OP since they're more outside the box than you usually see on this forum.

However, I disagree on the CP point. The concept of CP is not trash; the implementation is sub-optimal. 

One of the dumbest things about RTS games is that you can micromanage everything as the king/admiral, and give orders to a distant spaceship, soldier, zerg, or whatever like every second, as though you were  dragging them around on an invisible leash, without any regard to communication difficulties, attentiveness, etc.

There is no way a spaceship crew can function if their admiral is changing and belaying his own orders every second ("go here... no, go here... no, go here"). Carrying out an order/objective on a big ship involves a long chain of command and tens/hundreds of people from the admiral to the captain to the mates to the NCOs down to the guys carrying ammo back and forth etc. It just isn't possible to rapidly and continually change orders that much and not confuse everyone in the ship.

Also, it's really boring and stupid from a gameplay perspective. When you give an order in real life, you say "go and do this" and you leave it to the subordinate as to the specifics because they are trained for what they do. In RTS games though, you've got to micromanage for best results, basically stepping into the unit/ships body to get it done, by clicking a million times. You're basically just flipping between shoddy 1st person control of a bunch of units, rather than actual commander level decisions.

So I like that the developer tries to address this issue with CP. However using it as a pooled resource is  a little problematic. It would make more sense if each individual ship had a sort of timer on how fast you could give it new orders, with little ones being more responsive and big ones being less. Your own flagship's  capacity to distribute orders throughout the fleet (number of communications officers, etc) could also still effect things as well.

The CP doesn't address any of the issue you brought forth.

Different/conflicting commands? Not a issue. I happens in real life and orders change as the situation changes.

The only real effect of RL orders is latency and time. I takes time to give order and time for them to get executed. Neither can you give 20 orders at the same time (which you can do in a game if you pause). However, this is easily solved by implementing two very simple systems:
1) latency
2) order que

Basically it takes a few seconds (depending on factors) for the ship to start executing the order you are giving. This simulates the chain of command, communication latency, etc..
And order are executed in orders they are given. So even if you pause time and order Carrier A to attack, frigates B and C to fall back, once you unpause they won't immediately jump to.
first the carrier will recieve it's orders (that itself you should take 1-2 seconds at least) after which it will start executing it after 2-3 seconds
Once hte carrier gets it's order, the frigates will recieve theirs.
So timline

0 seconds - start, orders given in command interface, game unpaused
2 seconds - carrier gets orders
4 seconds - frigate A gets orders, carrier begins executing
6 seconds - frigate B gets orders, frigate A begins executing
8 seconds - frigate B begins execuing

If you ordered frigate A and B together as a group in the interface, then they will count as one (so both will act on 6 seconds)

Basically this simulates you verbally giving orders, like you are a captain, sitting in your chair and going:
"Comms, instruct the carrier Vengance to push the attack on the enemy destroyer! Tell frigate group 1 to pull back!"

Then your comms officer will relay those orders and then the ship captains would implement them
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Megas

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Re: Balance, skills and general musings
« Reply #107 on: December 08, 2018, 07:32:28 AM »

There's fog of war so you actually don't always know how many carriers the enemy has, unless you want the AI to become omniscient
It already is, at least the enemy side.  It knows what you deploy and it deploys accordingly.  It also deploys only after you deploy (probably to prevent exploits).  In other words, the AI cheats!  We used to be able to see what they deployed too back in the Starfarer days, but not anymore.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2018, 07:34:17 AM by Megas »
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TaLaR

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Re: Balance, skills and general musings
« Reply #108 on: December 08, 2018, 07:42:02 AM »

It already is, at least the enemy side.  It knows what you deploy and it deploys accordingly.  It also deploys only after you deploy (probably to prevent exploits).  In other words, the AI cheats!  We used to be able to see what they deployed too back in the Starfarer days, but not anymore.
Yeah, would be better if game showed what AI is going to deploy while player is selecting first deployment (updating as you select ships). Full knowledge both ways.
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nomadic_leader

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Re: Balance, skills and general musings
« Reply #109 on: December 09, 2018, 02:52:55 AM »


The CP doesn't address any of the issue you brought forth.


Well, it stops click intensive micromanagement by cutting you off as soon as the CP run out. I hate that aspect of RTS play, so I appreciate that Alex tried to eliminate, but CP don't make sense.


Quote from: TrashMan
However, this is easily solved by implementing two very simple systems:
1) latency
2) order que

I like this idea a lot.

This thread is about general musings, so here are my general musings while we're discussing  tactical game:

It's nonsense that the tactical map pauses the game when you bring it up, and that you can still give orders while paused, which destroys any sense of urgency and/or breaks the flow by forcing you to unpause it.  I suggested these be changed, but the reaction on the forums was decidedly negative and people said it would be too difficult. Real time strategy that is not in real time.  ???

Also the tactical map doesn't zoom in far enough so in big melees its quite difficult to click on a particular ship. Maybe it will get fixed someday?
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SCC

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Re: Balance, skills and general musings
« Reply #110 on: December 09, 2018, 03:02:21 AM »

It's nonsense that the tactical map pauses the game when you bring it up, and that you can still give orders while paused, which destroys any sense of urgency and/or breaks the flow by forcing you to unpause it.  I suggested these be changed, but the reaction on the forums was decidedly negative and people said it would be too difficult. Real time strategy that is not in real time.  ???
You're free to unpause it, just hit space.

TaLaR

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Re: Balance, skills and general musings
« Reply #111 on: December 09, 2018, 03:09:48 AM »

It's nonsense that the tactical map pauses the game when you bring it up, and that you can still give orders while paused, which destroys any sense of urgency and/or breaks the flow by forcing you to unpause it.  I suggested these be changed, but the reaction on the forums was decidedly negative and people said it would be too difficult. Real time strategy that is not in real time.  ???

NOI like RTwP, not apm obsession of true RTS. At least multiplayer titles have justification, why ruin perfectly good single player game?.
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nomadic_leader

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Re: Balance, skills and general musings
« Reply #112 on: December 09, 2018, 03:31:09 AM »

Folks remember, we had this argument years ago and the developer agreed with you, not me. So don't worry.

But its really bothersome to have to hit unpause everytime, if you're switching back and forth quite a bit. It stops the excitement. Each time you do it, you're reminded again that you're playing a game. The whole thing removes any feeling jeopardy or suspense from the tactical aspect of the game. Some of us want to play a real time game that's actually real time. I'm not so attached to my pretend spaceships that I mind losing some of them sometimes because the game is hard.

But hey, age of empires single player (or whatever) did it with pause 20 years ago, so everyone expects it and we must keep it.
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Euphytose

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Re: Balance, skills and general musings
« Reply #113 on: December 09, 2018, 07:47:12 PM »

Easy: Add an option at game creation that disables pausing during tactical combat.

Also add an option for changing the default state of the tactical map from paused to unpaused.
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