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[Morrokain]

(A great idea would more likely let you remove or simplify some things... so, say, if there was a use of HA that simplified the raid mechanics? That'd be really exciting!)

And if the reason for this is "immersion", then, let's see: the HA commodity represents stuff that's not quite put together - sure, it's mechs, tanks, and hovercraft, but they're not fully assembled. You might put them together (with some difficulty) shipboard, but doing an atmo drop with them? Not going to work. Someone on the surface you deliver to, though, has the luxury of time and space, and for them, they may even represent an increase in mobility rather than the opposite. That seems like a much simpler solution

Hah, ok fair enough. I won't lie, it feels a little expedient to me- but I certainly can't argue with the simplicity and time/work saved for other cool things so I'll take it- preferably as a placeholder until it can be used with something that has more impact than my suggestion like you said. 

Hopefully that will come during further playtesting/brainstorming/suggestions from community before the next update, but I'd rather it fit well and feel polished than be fast.

In the same vein, better change the description of the Valkyrie or I will have to raise my eyebrows. 

*snip* As an atmosphere-capable combat dropship with ground support weapon mounts designed to operate during re-entry and when grounded, the Valkyrie is often used to deploy heavy infantry support for tech raids on decivilized worlds.

I cannot imagine something of that size being unable to land prior assembled HA... maybe something in the description that indicates it specifically cannot actually land on the surface during raids for the player, and instead acts as any other ship in that it sends marines in small drop pods and extracts them with personnel shuttles?

[SafariJohn]

I think this would be a much more obvious if the unassigned marines were called "reserve" or better yet "overwatch". Then it would be clear they're not sitting on their duffs back in the fleet.

They're marked as "forces held in reserve" on the "marine losses" tooltip, yeah.

I specifically mean at the bottom of the Select Raid Objectives screen, where it currently says "Available forces".

Please make Marines required to clean out Mining/Research/Orbital Habitats!

What are you looking to accomplish with that suggestion? What would improve, gameplay-wise? What do you think might be the possible downsides?

If I may hazard a guess, what SonnaBanana is getting at is that research and mining stations are currently loot pinatas with no difficulties other than having a big fleet. I don't think adding marine-stuff to them is the answer here, though adding enemy fleets around the stations might be a good addition. For example, dormant Remnant ordos that all activate if you try to loot the station.


Kind of inverting SonnaBanana's suggestion, I wish raiding for blueprints, etc. was less generic. For example, you want a Scarab blueprint? Then you're going to have to find and raid one Tri-Tachyon's super-defended secret labs (spelled out as a special raid objective).

[bobucles]

Marine losses from blueprint raids (and similar) are high, so that already gates them in the same way, no?

As far as protecting marine veterancy, hmm, that's more complicated. At first glance this makes sense, but - this just means that a high-end raid now 1) costs more and 2) results in less marine losses. But, since HA is required, it's not like there's a choice there, so it's just... different. But not a lot different. It really feels like more "looking for a use for HA in raids" than "using HA to solve a design problem with raids", if you know what I mean.

Yeah, that's fair enough. The specific types of resources used in raiding are not really a critical factor, what matters is that the player makes an investment in exchange for a reward. Anything that gets really fancy might make more sense to tie into the story point system. So the player might have a limited number of marines, but they can do this cool story thing to succeed despite their low numbers. The player is really spending their story points to make it happen, any other materials that are required are just the flavor that makes it cool. It wouldn't even necessarily be a solution that requires big guns. It could be something crazy like "this food junk settles a special underworld deal, and thanks to Ocean's 11 our supply theft mission is guaranteed to succeed". Story points are magic, after all. 

In terms of raw mechanics, there might be a random item that will dramatically boost raiding odds. In order to use it, you need the item and the story point. That way it's not something a player can always use, but it's a cool bonus they can harness if they're prepared.

[SonnaBanana]

If I may hazard a guess, what SonnaBanana is getting at is that research and mining stations are currently loot pinatas with no difficulties other than having a big fleet. I don't think adding marine-stuff to them is the answer here, though adding enemy fleets around the stations might be a good addition. For example, dormant Remnant ordos that all activate if you try to loot the station.

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17344.msg273377#msg273377
Yes, the suggestion is for stations being too easy as well as making Marines more necessary for those who don't want to raid faction planets.

As for special blueprint raid missions, reserve them for special ships, weapons and colony buildings. An Enforcer or Gryphon blueprint is something you can get from normal raiding but some ships like Legion XIV and Scarab could be worthy for special missions.

[Alex]

In the same vein, better change the description of the Valkyrie or I will have to raise my eyebrows. 

*snip* As an atmosphere-capable combat dropship with ground support weapon mounts designed to operate during re-entry and when grounded, the Valkyrie is often used to deploy heavy infantry support for tech raids on decivilized worlds.

I cannot imagine something of that size being unable to land prior assembled HA... maybe something in the description that indicates it specifically cannot actually land on the surface during raids for the player, and instead acts as any other ship in that it sends marines in small drop pods and extracts them with personnel shuttles?

I don't believe you Possible reasons, off the top of my head: the Valkyrie itself is basically a massive "heavy armament", and having it also be capable of transporting smaller heavy armaments would detract from its own capabilities more than it would add. Or: it already does have those, and that's part of the built-in "ground support package" and doesn't require external heavy armaments. (Heck, could even have the GSP hullmod give a bonus if you have HA in cargo, or some such.) In any case, my point is that for this stuff, you can easily explain it one way or another! So really it all boils down to what mechanics and gameplay you want; that's the heart of it.

I specifically mean at the bottom of the Select Raid Objectives screen, where it currently says "Available forces".

Yep, I gotcha. I feel like "available forces" is better because it provides a bit more clarify about the primary function of the screen. And then the tooltip for marine losses breaks it down.

Though maybe "Available forces / reserves: " might work better. Hmm. Just tried it, I think I'll keep it as-is for now.

Kind of inverting SonnaBanana's suggestion, I wish raiding for blueprints, etc. was less generic. For example, you want a Scarab blueprint? Then you're going to have to find and raid one Tri-Tachyon's super-defended secret labs (spelled out as a special raid objective).

It well could be, actually. It's pretty easy to set up custom raid objectives that guarantee a specific blueprint, for example, and I've got some notes to look at that, but that depends on so much stuff that's not set in stone that I can't really get into it!

Yeah, that's fair enough. The specific types of resources used in raiding are not really a critical factor, what matters is that the player makes an investment in exchange for a reward. Anything that gets really fancy might make more sense to tie into the story point system. So the player might have a limited number of marines, but they can do this cool story thing to succeed despite their low numbers. The player is really spending their story points to make it happen, any other materials that are required are just the flavor that makes it cool. It wouldn't even necessarily be a solution that requires big guns. It could be something crazy like "this food junk settles a special underworld deal, and thanks to Ocean's 11 our supply theft mission is guaranteed to succeed". Story points are magic, after all. 

In terms of raw mechanics, there might be a random item that will dramatically boost raiding odds. In order to use it, you need the item and the story point. That way it's not something a player can always use, but it's a cool bonus they can harness if they're prepared.

Huh, interesting! I'm not sure I see exactly how I'd make it work, but nonetheless, I like the way you think

[Morrokain]

In any case, my point is that for this stuff, you can easily explain it one way or another! So really it all boils down to what mechanics and gameplay you want; that's the heart of it.

Sorry, I very much respect your outlook, though I do not share it. I think we may have to agree to disagree here and I'm fine with that.

I see it as 75% mechanics and gameplay, 25% believable setting and a good, well written and thought out lore/story. For me, I want my games to be engaging on more than a mechanical level. If not, at best case scenario I would play it for fun gameplay for a while, but I will get uninspired and bored relatively quickly without something anchoring those mechanics.

I also don't personally believe you can lore/description hand-wave everything away for simplicity's sake in all cases as far as mechanics are concerned. Some, maybe even most things you can, sure, and it doesn't have to be 100% realistic because that would make it not fun. Hand-waving (especially when critical to the gameplay element) is overall tolerable when used with discretion- but nothing can be overly immersion breaking that defies my subjective sense of what the setting would realistically contain once its been advertised using its stories, descriptions and general lore. This includes separate features or mechanics who clash with each other in the setting. In this specific case, if HA were left as they were it would fall into that category. "So... used in one feature and completely irrelevant in another feature that realistically ties into it?  " would likely be my genuine response if I just started playing, as is. It's just my opinion, but I stand by it in this case.

(I 100% agree that the core gameplay mechanics come first. Also, since mechanics and features are not complete there is still more foundation work to do and I can understand a conservative attitude towards making too many changes too fast or committing to story/immersive features under those circumstances.)

I will debate it no further since you have given your reasoning. Thank you again for your responses! You always give me lots of things to think about and consider.

[xenoargh]

First off:  I really like the new Raid mechanics, but I still want to hear about Conquest

On Crew experience:

Personally, I think you should have more differentiation so that there are interesting metas to pursue and not just one path to optimum.  I miss leveling Crew, in the sense that it made you care about casualties; I entirely agree that just giving them one path was pretty dull (I still remember grinding Elites so that I could take on the Defense Fleet).

So...

1.  Pilots, for attack craft.
2.  Engineers, for CR repair and maybe ingame repair.
3.  Gunners, for damage bonus (not range, not accuracy).
4.  Flux Mechanics, for more drain / pool.

Rate them all, level them all.  All Crew start off as Basic Crew; they specialize when they level up the first time, depending on what they got assigned to do (by the game, automatically).  As they get higher in level, they cost more.

Sounds pretty complex, but wait:

1.  It gives players a reason to respect Crew casualties again.  This should, imo, be why players gradually transition away from Garbage Balls; sure, they're cheap, but they're just not as effective.  If you don't treat your crew as expendable, and buy them ships that last, you get experience and "loyalty", in the sense that they're just better now.  Throw in "trainer" skills for your Captains, and boom, you now have a Mount and Blade-like system where your Captains can offer nice passives to offset being less-stellar combatants (I really think this should be a thing; stuff like the Pathfinder skill from that game is missing atm).
2.  It gives players a choice between cost and effect that's useful.  All-Elites should make it possible for a smaller fleet to shine.  It'd provide a counterweight for the AI needing ever-larger fleets, too.
3.  It'd feel meaningfully connected to the Marines mechanically.
4.  You could even throw in some Ground Commander skills for Captains, and complete that circle.

Anyhow, I like the proposed changes and I'm looking forward to seeing this next build quite a lot

[BringerofBabies]

What are you looking to accomplish with that suggestion? What would improve, gameplay-wise? What do you think might be the possible downsides?

For a little more detail on that, there was a short suggestion thread with ideas for more events on stations (including needing marines) and another for planets with the decivilized condition needing marines to scavenge ruins. The only "problem" that this solves is adding more variety/uniqueness while exploring, rather than any existing impediment to smooth gameplay. I think that that type of thing might end up being popular with modders to add, so I would just suggest making the raid dialog as controllable as possible (custom columns?) for non-raids (no vanilla objectives allowed) to allow for things like the above exploration enhancements, Nexerelin's invasions, and Varya's haunted derelicts.

[Sundog]

The thing I think it does mechanically is make it so you're incentivized to pick less dangerous raid targets - to gain XP and minimize losses - instead of it being a pure math problem of "loot - cost of marines lost = profit". Getting more done with less marines I think *should* tilt this far enough towards mostly conserving marines being better that you don't really have to do this math. It's either "go for a safer target", or "I need this synchrotron to *actually use*, so it's not a question of profit". At least, that's the goal here, so it's not a grimdark math problem every time.

Ah, ok. That does seem like a worthwhile mechanical purpose. At the same time though, wouldn't that encourage the use of different ranks of marines for different tasks? Eh, anyway, I've already mentioned that concern and It might not turn out to be a problem anyway.

I do wonder, though, if making both marines and crew sell for zero credits wouldn't be a good idea. It'd make sense, and it'd avoid the problem of diluting marine XP just because you want to both 1) have some marines and 2) ship some marines elsewhere for a profit.

Hmm... well I'm not sure what problem you're referring to, but I don't think it would hurt if crew and marines sold for zero credits. It doesn't make sense that you would get paid when you cancel their contracts / terminate them, and I can't remember the last time I sold crew, marines, fuel, or supplies. Those things invariably go in storage.

[bobucles]

I can't remember the last time I sold crew, marines, fuel, or supplies

Really?  Ludd pays top dollar for marines, as well as paying top dollar for fuel or supplies. You'd be removing one of the most lucrative trades in the game. The marine contracts aren't being terminated, they're being sold to someone else. It's not very different than subprime lending, it's perfectly honest trade.

 Putting crew and marines on ice doesn't make much sense either, since you're still holding on to their contracts and end up paying them nothing. If anything, stuffing marines into your storage lockers to avoid writing their paycheck makes less sense than returning them back to the wild where they belong.

[Sundog]

Ludd pays top dollar for marines, as well as paying top dollar for fuel or supplies. You'd be removing one of the most lucrative trades in the game.

Hmm... I'll have to try that. Honestly I'm not very diligent about watching out for trade opportunities.

Putting crew and marines on ice doesn't make much sense either, since you're still holding on to their contracts and end up paying them nothing. If anything, stuffing marines into your storage lockers to avoid writing their paycheck makes less sense than returning them back to the wild where they belong.

Absolutely. Storing people makes far less sense than selling them in terms of realism, but:

Simply disallowing the storage of people-commodities could make the whole dilemma moot.

I don't think that's mechanically feasible, since you routinely need to do this. You'd just end up having to get your marines killed off when you wanted to get rid of them (and likewise for crew), which is scarcely any better Besides, in-fiction, people aren't being sold or "stored" - it's contracts being bought/bought back (or sold), etc.

[intrinsic_parity]

Would buying inexperienced marines ever decrease your combat ability? Like if you have 100 max level marines and you buy some unleveled marines, would the loss in average experience cost you more than the increase in number give?

It feels like you would never sell experience marines anymore. Since you would lose experience on your other marines if  replace the ones you sold. You would just put them in storage when you didn't need them.

Another question: does experience consider all the marines you own including storage, or just the marines in your current fleet. Basically, could you put your experienced marines in storage so that you could trade inexperienced marines without reducing the experience of the other marines. I suppose you could also train the inexperienced marines without diluting the experienced ones, but that seems like it would be less effective than just using all your marines.

[Megas]

I probably would treat them like collectables.  Store many of my max-level marines, buy new ones, rathole more than get max level, repeat.  Maybe break out the high-level marines for a special occasion.

I kind of did that with crew when they had levels.  Store elites, then buy new greens to raise.

[FooF]

First off:  I really like the new Raid mechanics, but I still want to hear about Conquest

On Crew experience:

Personally, I think you should have more differentiation so that there are interesting metas to pursue and not just one path to optimum.  I miss leveling Crew, in the sense that it made you care about casualties; I entirely agree that just giving them one path was pretty dull (I still remember grinding Elites so that I could take on the Defense Fleet).

So...

1.  Pilots, for attack craft.
2.  Engineers, for CR repair and maybe ingame repair.
3.  Gunners, for damage bonus (not range, not accuracy).
4.  Flux Mechanics, for more drain / pool.

Rate them all, level them all.  All Crew start off as Basic Crew; they specialize when they level up the first time, depending on what they got assigned to do (by the game, automatically).  As they get higher in level, they cost more.

Sounds pretty complex, but wait:

1.  It gives players a reason to respect Crew casualties again.  This should, imo, be why players gradually transition away from Garbage Balls; sure, they're cheap, but they're just not as effective.  If you don't treat your crew as expendable, and buy them ships that last, you get experience and "loyalty", in the sense that they're just better now.  Throw in "trainer" skills for your Captains, and boom, you now have a Mount and Blade-like system where your Captains can offer nice passives to offset being less-stellar combatants (I really think this should be a thing; stuff like the Pathfinder skill from that game is missing atm).
2.  It gives players a choice between cost and effect that's useful.  All-Elites should make it possible for a smaller fleet to shine.  It'd provide a counterweight for the AI needing ever-larger fleets, too.
3.  It'd feel meaningfully connected to the Marines mechanically.
4.  You could even throw in some Ground Commander skills for Captains, and complete that circle.

Anyhow, I like the proposed changes and I'm looking forward to seeing this next build quite a lot

As much as I want like this, it's needlessly complex. If you end up splitting crew into classes, you have a minigame of trying to min/max the best Pilot/Engineer/Mechanic/etc. ratio given the right prices, scarcity, etc. If they level up as you play, as Alex said, the game doesn't really differentiate how crew losses happen so every time you take damage, you worry if your Elite Pilots got killed or the green crew. It's too much minutia for what amounts to be a few minor combat bonuses.

If you want to do that, abstract everything. For any given battle you get X experience (based on battle/fleet size, or what have you). You bring 100% of Y Crew into battle and have some % of Y at the end. At the end of the battle you get X*Y experience that goes toward Crew Veterancy. This levels up some number of crew to their respective levels. The lowest veterancy crew are guaranteed to die first if losses occur (the Red Shirt effect). If you don't want your veteran crew to die, keep a reserve of green crew. All bonuses are based off a weighted % of your crew being of the various veterancy levels and is fleetwide. It doesn't matter which ship has Elite crew (they're not being assigned to individual ships anyway): all ships have some % of Elite bonuses as a ratio of Elite Crew:Total Crew. 100% green crew is baseline level so all veterancy bonuses are purely positive. If you want specific classes of crew, you do this across Pilots, Gunners, Mechanics, etc, but I think that's over-complicating things. 

If you had 100 total crew and 25 were Green, 25 were Experienced, 25 were Veteran, and 25 were Elite, your entire fleet would have something like .25(0)+.25(.33)+.25(.66)+.25(1) of the total Elite bonus available (in this case, about ~50% of the total available bonus). Whatever the Elite bonuses are (and they could be about anything minor), your whole fleet is receiving this bonus and as you lose crew, the ratios trend downward and as you retain crew and gain veterancy, those ratios trend upward. Individual gains and losses would have little impact unless you lose huge chunks of crew at a time, in which case veteran crew would begin to be lost.

I hope that makes sense but having multiple classes and such for small stat bonuses just seems like too much.

[bobucles]

Would buying inexperienced marines ever decrease your combat ability? Like if you have 100 max level marines and you buy some unleveled marines, would the loss in average experience cost you more than the increase in number give?

The information sounds as though XP level behaves as a separate number from the number of marines. So if your squadron has 1000XP and you buy a bunch of marines, then the squadron still has 1000XP, just diluted across more marines.

I don't think that's mechanically feasible, since you routinely need to [store marines and crew]

There are valid reasons to remove crew from the fleet. Buying and selling them as needed is generally not a problem, since crew don't have XP levels. The only real reason to stockpile extra crew is when the markets can't keep up with your demand. So for example a market might cap out at 2000 crew, but an ultra mega hyper fleet needs 10000 crew to function. It's not possible to store 10k crew on the market, there is a need for extra storage space. At least that's the theory.

It doesn't really explain why stored crew need to be free. If you're in a situation where you need 10k crew on tap to satisfy a jumbo fleet, you also have the resources to pay for their upkeep, or at least to have a massive hiring complex on a major world. There is no particular need to box them up for free. Marines are in a similar situation. If you're in a position where 2k marines need to be readily available, you can also afford the kind of upkeep or military complex on your worlds that keep them readily accessible on reserve. Big fleets have big problems, so they need big solutions after all.

For the modest explorer, there's no particular need to store crew. Buying and selling as needed using the local markets is perfectly viable. It can be profitable too, so it's not like it's a chore or major downside.