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Author Topic: defensive/offensive escort ; formation ; flux/CR boarding  (Read 2268 times)

AchlySnotra

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defensive/offensive escort ; formation ; flux/CR boarding
« on: October 09, 2019, 09:15:19 AM »

I just spent an hour reading topics to see if those ideas had already been mentioned. I consider myself excused if it is the case.

Defensive escort = stay near the ship and deal some suppressive fire to drive the attackers off, but stay near the escorted ship!!

offensive escort = the job of the escort is specifically to attack the same target as the escorted ship. the thing here is that the escort use the escorted ship (bigger) as a dissuasive shield.
If I just order them to attack a target, they'll do it until they are endangered and it is often too late. I would like them to be able to go forward in an offensive strike, but if the mothership is too far behind, they'll let the target go. that's actually a problem with the current escort behavior: ships that get miles away from the ship they are supposed to protect just to attack one ship that keeps getting away. I like the idea of taking an opportunity when it presents itself, but not if the cost is to get yourself or the mothership destroyed because both are separated. on a side note, this is also a problem when my ship keeps attacking an enemy ship despite the extensive damage it is taking.

and here comes another suggestion: that the escort go into a short offensive strike on the ship dealing damage to the ship they are supposed to escort. I know I can select a lot of ships to attack the same target, but then I would have to order every ship to escort the one they are supposed to again. 'cause, yeah, I try to make ships that complement each other go together, or have every big ship the same kind and amount of escort so that no one is ever alone.
this is why a specifically defensive escort would be nice: the job is to keep your assigned ship from taking damage.
while the job of an offensive escort is to attack in group, both to concentrate the firepower and to be a greater threat, harder to attack.

I don't think both behaviors in the same general role as "escort" will work, and i am almost sure it currently doesn't. (no offense, I know the game is in Alpha version, and it wust be so damned tricky to code an escort behavior).
actually, I don't know how my ships behave. their behavior seems very vague and it makes it very hard to build up a strategy.


second suggestion: formation
harder to code than it looks, I acknowledge, the idea is to made ships stay approximatively in the same position relatively to other ships position.
simple example: my buffalo Mk2 class support destroyer, with no shield and it's pilum LRM launcher and other 1000+ range weapons, always stay behind the fleet (or mothership).
or: 2 Atlas Mk2 class combat modified superfreighter standing side to side so that they only have one side to defend each, allowing me to better manage their flux, both for shields and weapons.
or simply two ships that have complemntary weapons standing side to side to easily attack the same target.
I would like some small ships to flank my big ships so that they take care of incoming missiles while the big ships concentrate their flux on firepower.

those two suggestions come from the fact that it is really hard to strategize due to the lack of discipline and sometimes extreme dumbness the ships are showing. like my unshielded ships diving into battle, disallowing my bigger ships to fire because they are before their weapons, and dying because they stayed there while taking an enormous amount of damage (despite the fact that I tried to give them a "cautious" captain. I'm looking at you, Egypt Powell!!).

So I'd really like those (or some others with the same goal) strategy features, especially since I can't micromanage a battle due to having limited and slowly regenerating command points. I mean, you are almost sure to lose a ship if you go into battle without the "operation center" hull mod. And then, you have to tell every ship that is a little too exposed to go away; and even then they won't listen and die miserably.

then again, this is probably a part of why Alex thinks Starsector is not ready to be available on steam. I'd like my complaints and suggestions to be heard, but I'll be patient.


the last suggestion is a bit controvertial, but I've read a lot of complicated suggestions about boarding, some really interesting (like disabling a specific feature of a ship or increase the chance of recovering a disabled enemy ship), but I hope mine is simpler while giving a lot of possibilities: the role of boarding fighters/drones would be to lower the ships flux dissipation and/or capacity and/or to increase the amount of flux the systems of a ship use, and/or to increase the combat readiness loss of a ship over time.
just to be extra clear about what I have in mind: the first two options means a ship can fire less often and it's shield can take less damage, and it can be a powerfull tool in a battle. the third option would make the ship having malfunctions faster, a powerfull feature too.

again, I'm talking about what I think would improve the gameplay, but said gameplay doesn't have to be perfect in alpha; and I acknowledge that there is more urgent to do, or simply that Alex wants to work on something else right now. (knowing the internet, being extra careful with your posts doesn't hurt).
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: defensive/offensive escort ; formation ; flux/CR boarding
« Reply #1 on: October 09, 2019, 10:44:32 AM »

Escort behavior: First I'll say this: the escort behavior you're describing sounds like you've ordered a slow ship to escort a fast ship. I have had zero problems with ships on escort duty getting separated from the escorted ship provided that the escorting ship is fast enough to keep up and the order is given at a time when they can follow it. If you could provide examples of what ships you've had problems with (and maybe screen shots of the tactical map) it might be clearer what problems you are running into, because that doesn't sound like an issue with the escort behavior that I've experienced. Also, if you tell ships that are far away and engaged in combat to escort each other, they often will remain engaged in their current battle for a significant amount of time. I think that could potentially be improved, but I also prefer the ships to disengage safely rather than try to follow your orders to their detriment. Again if they are slower than the attacker, they will not be able to disengage (since the ship will always be able to follow them) so they will likely have trouble following your order.

With regards to escort behavior, my experience is that the current behavior (which is changed from the major last patch) results in escorting ships being very defensive and generally staying behind the escorted ship protecting their rear. In the past escorting ships would often push up in front of the escorted ship to protect them (and sometimes die as a result). I've seen several suggestions for multiple different escort behaviors that allow for 'supportive' escorting and 'protective' escorting (essentially the new and old behaviors). I think there's a decent chance that will happen. Idk if the AI being able to switch between those behaviors dynamically is practical, but it certainly would be nice.



formations: I think forcing ships to stay in certain formations would often result in them flying into bad situations to stay in formation, and that would make it useless. There definitely are some issues with small fast ships getting in front of big slow ships particularly at the beginning of battle, but there are also ways to avoid that. Some people deploy big ships first, and then reinforce with smaller ships to get them behind the big ships. You can also order ships to stay at certain locations if you want to try and position them relative to one another. I think the 'defend the flank' behavior is exactly what the current escort behavior does. If your goal is just to set up your front line and backline, just make rally points on the map and order your back line to stay at the back ones and front line to stay at the front ones. You can move the points up as the battle progresses. I personally don't find that to be necessary, but my backline is entirely carriers that have different AI behavior so they stay pretty safe most of the time. I would also mention that once lots of capitals and cruisers come into play, frigates and destroyers die frequently because they just don't have the capacity/hull to survive big hits. I just stop using them mostly in end game.

In general, this game is not an RTS, you're supposed to interact with combat primarily by flying your ship, and the AI is supposed to be mostly self reliant with general guidance from you. If you find that you have to micro manage, you're making some other mistakes. I have never used the command center hull mod and I pretty much never take loses. Some of the problems might be because of you ships choices or outfitting choices, or simply because you're fighting battles where you are at a big disadvantage. Ships choice matters a lot. Slow ships will never be able to run away from fast ships and weak ships will lose 1v1s against strong ships, regardless of what orders you give them. Buffalo mk2's are very weak ships, a proper destroyer like a hammerhead or medusa is faster and better armed, it will kill that ship every time regardless of the orders you give because the buffalo can never run away. You're better off avoiding them unless you're doing very particular strategies with recovering ships (zombie fleet). In general, any ships that the pirates use (except the pirate falcon and maybe the pirate shrike) are worse than other ships of the same class.



boarding: this topic has been beaten to death, and it's exceeding unlikely to be added. In combat debuffs could be cool but it would also be a huge amount of work and a nightmare to balance.
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SCC

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Re: defensive/offensive escort ; formation ; flux/CR boarding
« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2019, 06:58:05 AM »

Escorts may or may not be changed, there have been quite many requests for Alex to do something about them.
I still don't know if Alex attempted formations and if so, what were the results. I think it might be worth checking out for him.
the last suggestion is a bit controvertial, but I've read a lot of complicated suggestions about boarding, some really interesting (like disabling a specific feature of a ship or increase the chance of recovering a disabled enemy ship), but I hope mine is simpler while giving a lot of possibilities: the role of boarding fighters/drones would be to lower the ships flux dissipation and/or capacity and/or to increase the amount of flux the systems of a ship use, and/or to increase the combat readiness loss of a ship over time.
just to be extra clear about what I have in mind: the first two options means a ship can fire less often and it's shield can take less damage, and it can be a powerfull tool in a battle. the third option would make the ship having malfunctions faster, a powerfull feature too.
Boarding to recover a ship: either you make it RNG (and very irritating), or you make it a "you need X marines to get this ship" mechanic, which isn't much different from current salvaging mechanics.
Boarding fighters lowering flux dissipation: so... kind of what dealing damage to shields does?
Boarding to make weapons/engines malfunction: so... kind of what EMP damage does?

AchlySnotra

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Re: defensive/offensive escort ; formation ; flux/CR boarding
« Reply #3 on: October 21, 2019, 05:59:13 AM »

thanks for your answers.

intrinsic_parity
I have already tried everything you said (I have tried everything I could think of, actually.)
using reiforcement doesn't really work for long because the small ships will always find a way to go before the ship thay are supposed to escort. and make the big ships escort the smaller ships does not work either because, as you said, speed problems. making them both escort each other makes me unable to order them to engage.
for your other suggestions, this picture makes a good résumé of the problem:
(edit: it does not work, I don't know how to put an image here, but I explained the problems with words and that should be enough)
if you can see it, you can see some of the problems. I have tried to make my ships defend a position. it actually worked a bit: a lot of small enemy ships were destroyed, and the enemy capital ship only managed to destroy one venture class balanced cruiser and one enforcer class strike destroyer. I don't know how you keep most of your ships alive, but the only way I found is to order them to retreat as soon as they are exposed then give them back the previous order when they are safe. but it is a command points vacuum.

then at the bottom is my command ship. it is okay if it stays there and do nothing because I need it during the whole battle (has operation center), but I have tried to put slow ships carrying fighters there too and surprise! they never engaged. or I order a capital ship to escort them and I am unable to engage big ships because that would mean leave the fighter ships alone, or I order them to escort capital ships and they end up alone, or I order them to keep a position and they get killed attacking another ship or they don't move and are useless. so I retreated them.

and finally, my task force, all the way the left. they are fast, they either cloak or tp, and they keep attacking a small ship I told them to AVOID and not obeying my order to attack the enemy capital ship. I made another suggestion specifically dedicated to that issue here: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17022.0
"a command that changes a ship's behavior to "focus on assigned target and ignore every other enemy ship ; of course try to avoid missiles and disengage when your flux is high, but your firepower is only dedicated to your target except for defensive weapons".

You know, in a battle, positions very often makes the difference between survive and die; between victory and defeat (I have learned that playinig Overwatch, a strategy game), and it seems to me that it is the main thing the AIs of this game are bad at.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2019, 06:09:59 AM by AchlySnotra »
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: defensive/offensive escort ; formation ; flux/CR boarding
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2019, 07:54:48 AM »

Can you show us your fleet? It's possible you can improve performance by using better ships and load outs. I'm not saying you aren't running into AI issues, but you might also be using weaker ships and losing some of them because of that. I try to avoid using all of the ships you've mentioned so far.

Btw, to post images, I put them on imgur and then link from imgur using the bb code link imgur provides.
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AchlySnotra

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Re: defensive/offensive escort ; formation ; flux/CR boarding
« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2019, 11:16:24 PM »

intrinsic_parity
Well, I figured that out when I read somewhere that pirate ships are a bit weaker than their different equivalents. And most of my ships are pirate since they come from salvage; and I wanted for my first ride at the game to never buy any ship. I like making my life harder like that. but this endorses my point: A player should have possibilities to beat greater raw power with better strategies, and... well I found mine:
the only strategy that worked so far is to only fight with your bigger ships and order them all to defend the same point. that is the only way I found to make them not dive into the enemy forces and get killed, and to get them to stay somewhat together so that they can support each other. then you wait for them to destroy all the enemy small ships, then wait for the remaining big ships to imitate their fallen companions of the same size which tried to dive into my forces and stupidly died early. I didn't loose any ship since I do that; but on the other hand, I didn't try this with medium-sized ships, so I don't know if it works.

Also, each time I tried to pilot a ship I died because there is just too much to take in count when piloting a ship: targetS, different types of damage to deal, soft flux, sheilds orientation, sheild removal with different incoming types of damage, acceleration, manoeuvrability, ship orientation, momentum, ally positions, enemy positions, ally management while I am distracted, and I probably am forgeting things. I understand why some people don't want boarding.
But I thought: I have these two shade class phase frigates and this hyperion class frigate, the squad I affectionately call my "task force". They were supposed to, In my greatest fantasies, dive into battle at the best moment using their phase cloak and teleport abilities, use their high EMP damage bursts to disable a little too close and dangerous big enemy ship's weapons and engines and retreat right after so they would never be too much in danger; then my big ships would notice the enemy ship's troubles and rush closer to deal it as much damage as possible (or I would order them to using the eliminate command), but they would not be too much in danger because they would attack together because I ordered one of them to escort the other! then one of my phase frigates un-phased on my capital ship. immediate destruction.  :-\
But I figured: no sheild to manage, great manoeuvrability, and requires a brain to manage: those shade class are perfect for me to control them myself! plus, the numerous reatreats give me many occasions to check on my other ships!
now it is like two legion class, two onslaught, two dominator and their many smaller ships against only my conquest-class standard, my dominator, my three atlass mkII class modified superfreighters and my shade, and I rarely get any of my ships disabled.

So to summarize: I know I played this game the wrong way: I didn't want to repair or replace lost ships because I didn't want to dumbly loose any money, and I wanted everything to be over-obtimized. Still, the only strategies being the equipment of your ships and "defend this position" is, I feel, not enough. the preparing of a ships is good, but I would like to make battle strategies. more and better group behaviors would greatly improve this.


Edit:
actually, my strategy shows something important: in a battle, or you dumbly loose because your ships are not where they are supposed to, or you win because all the enemy ships make the same mistake at some point. my strategy is just to wait for the enemy ships to be where they are not supposed to. I really saw it during recent battles: I don't need the shade and EMP strategy, the "defend" strategy is enough.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2019, 11:36:18 PM by AchlySnotra »
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TrashMan

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Re: defensive/offensive escort ; formation ; flux/CR boarding
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2019, 01:08:05 AM »

A lot of the formation problems are due to anemic weapon ranges. Ship constantly get into each-others way as they try to get into range. Frankly, I think all ranges should be doubled.
This would also make wall/edge hugging a bit less ideal, as enemies would more easily move into fire positions.
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AchlySnotra

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Re: defensive/offensive escort ; formation ; flux/CR boarding
« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2019, 12:03:43 PM »

A lot of the formation problems are due to anemic weapon ranges. Ship constantly get into each-others way as they try to get into range. Frankly, I think all ranges should be doubled.
I don't know, seems to me that the AI will try to stay at the edge of the enemy range most of the time, and when you need to engage, you still expose yourself, and to get the enemy in your range while still be out of the range of most of the enemy ships, two ships would still need to be at the same point and would get in each other's way anyway.
but what if the weapon ranges were blurred? I haven't really thought this through, but what if there was an additionnal "blurry" range at which the bullets had a chance of disappearing or deal less damage? for most of the time, firing at this range would be a waste of flux, but when a ship needs support, it's allies would have a margin of action; and the reduced damage would still provide some support.
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