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[Thaago]

One common complaint is that the PPT on small ships makes them unviable in later game battles: once they start ticking down they will malfunction and die, and even if you retreat them they are going to suck down a cruiser's worth of supplies! However, boosting frigate PPT across the board severely conflicts with one of the design goals of PPT: to stop a lone frigate (or several) from endlessly kiting a larger ship, a situation which leads to tedious and/or frustrating gameplay.

My proposed solution is to make it so that small ship PPT can be extended, but only when the kiting situation cannot happen: when that ship is on an escort assignment to a larger vessel.

The rule: A ship escorting a ship of a larger size class will not tick down PPT unless the ship it is escorting has an equal or lower PPT remaining. The PPT of the smaller ship effectively is "locked" to the larger ship. Letting it off its leash (for kiting) or destroying the larger ship will immediately cause PPT to start ticking down. Ships in phase, and ships with SO, cannot benefit from this rule.

Example 1: A Lasher (240 PPT) is deployed escorting an Enforcer (420 PPT). Until the Enforcer hits 240 PPT remaining, the Lasher's PPT does not tick down. After 300 seconds, both ships are at 120 PPT, assuming significant threats.

Example 2: A Lasher (240 PPT) is deployed not escorting an Enforcer (420 PPT). After 200 seconds of engaging the enemy, the Lasher is nearly out of PPT (40 remaining) while the Enforcer still has plenty (220). The player/AI assigns the Lasher as an escort in order to preserve its usefulness and save supplies, at least until 180 seconds later, when both will be at 40 and the ticking for the Lasher will start again.

Example 3: A Lasher (240 PPT) is deployed escorting an Enforcer (420 PPT). After 120 seconds of battle, the enemy has had their numbers diminished, and the player decides to remove the Escort order so the Lasher (240 PPT remaining) can flank independently of the Enforcer (300 PPT remaining). They can do this without fear of the Lasher suddenly sucking down a huge number of supplies.

Some beneficial properties I think will emerge from this mechanic:

• More balanced fleet composition by extending the usefulness of smaller ship classes.
• Allows the use of small ships in an escort role in long battles, promoting the worth of those ships. Some ships (Omen, Brawler, Vigilance, Monitor, Enforcer) really are good escorts, but that role is punished by the PPT disparity between themselves and their escortee.
• Letting escorts "off the leash" (with a full assault or similar for example) becomes a more consequential decision, as the ships will then tick down at a normal rate.
• Greater value of command points in general, as they can be used to control the flow of PPT.
• Greater value of hardened subsystems on larger ships, as they will be giving that PPT to smaller ships, while making the hullmod no longer mandatory for frigates... as long as they are escorting.

One possible downside of this proposed rule change: it encourages "escort balls", which may be a more tedious form of gameplay. However, escorting with the wrong ship, or over escorting in general, is detrimental to performance: fragile ships tend to just go 'pop!' when leashed with an escort, and escorts typically do not flank or form a good battle line. Which ships to escort and when is then a real tradeoff instead of a required choice.

This would require a change to the admiral AI in order to implement: it would need to be made aware of the value of escorting to preserve CR/PPT: when a small ship runs out of PPT, it should be assigned to escort a larger one if practical and points are available, and at the start of battles the AI should use escort order to prolong small ship liftetime. However, the AI already uses escort orders quite a bit, so I don't think this would change gameplay too much from the player perspective (other than enemy escorts not dropping dead in long fights without the intervention of high velocity ordinance).

Alternate, more complicated rule that preserves long PPT value as an independent stat:

Spoiler

The rule is simple: Modify the Escort command, such that if a ship is escorting a ship n size classes larger, PPT consumption (and CR tick down rate) is reduced by 1/(5-n). This works out to a PPT extension of (5-n)/(4-n). This could either be an intrinsic property of the escort command, or it could be a hullmod of the larger ship, a skill, etc. Put another way: Frigates escorting destroyers, cruisers, and capitals receive a bonus of 1.33, 1.5, and 2.0 to their operational times, respectively. Destroyers escorting cruisers/capitals get 1.33/1.5, and cruisers escorting capitals get 1.33.

[close]

[AxleMC131]

I very much like this idea. Anything that encourages a coordinated, mixed fleet - and keeps frigates relevant - gets a thumbs-up in my books.

[Wyvern]

Regardless of whether this uses the 'simple' or the 'complex' version of the mechanic, I would be very much in favor of something like this being in the game.

That said, I also think it deserves a bit more thought about where the corner cases are and how a canny player might abuse it.  For example, consider a set of Drovers assigned to escort an Astral - or a Prometheus.  Should those Drovers really get an increased PPT?  If not, how do we prevent that without getting overly complicated?

[Thaago]

Oof, carriers, I'd forgotten about them, as when originally formulating this I was just thinking about frigates. I don't think a blanket ban on anything with a flight deck would work the same way that phase and SO restrictions do, but on the other hand the whole rational why this rule would be ok (the small ship cannot kite as its an escort) would be violated.

A potential solution is to change how carriers with escort orders behave: their fighters could be locked to flying around the vicinity of the escorted ship and the carrier itself, with no ability to go on extended attack runs. I think thats reasonably intuitive, and also means that players can actually vector fighters to the defense of ships in trouble, which is currently an unreliable pain. In that scenario, I think extended PPT for the escorting carrier would be ok. As a bonus, that kind of behavior is already coded for "Support" fighters, so I don't think this modification would require a whole new AI to be written. The new behavior is: If a Carrier is an escort, its fighters are switched to "Support" AI, and their only allowed target is the escortee ship (or the carrier itself when on recall mode).

... I would really like that behavior on its own merits actually, even without being a solution to this particular problem.

[TaLaR]

I very much like that at least in combat AI operates under same rules as player. This goes into "magic" orders category (being able to do something otherwise impossible on direct order) and would become a huge exception - AI piloted frigate can extend it's PPT, but player piloted one can't (=forcing player to pilot only largest ships).

Unless you could formulate it in some order-independent way, like simply being around larger allied ships stops PPT decay as long as larger ship has more. Actually, seems elegant and simple to me.
EDIT: Except currently phased phase ships or carriers under 100% replenishment.

[SCC]

Carriers could simply always lose PPT/CR, if under 100% fighter replacement time, or when wings are incomplete.
I wonder how deadly would be Aurora with a herd of Tempests at its back. All 420 seconds of it.

[Thaago]

I very much like that at least in combat AI operates under same rules as player. This goes into "magic" orders category (being able to do something otherwise impossible on direct order) and would become a huge exception - AI piloted frigate can extend it's PPT, but player piloted one can't.

Unless you could formulate it in some order-independent way, like simply being around larger allied ships stops PPT decay as long as larger ship has more. Actually, seems elegant and simple to me.
...

A very good point, but I think there are problems with having a proximity rule for all AI. I'd much rather make an exception for player piloting (just like players are an exception to the whole order system) and make THAT proximity based.

The issue with having this be proximity based for the AI comes from choosing the radius correctly, and what happens when the small ship wanders outside of it. Combined with the relatively low amount of control that players have over the exact position of their AI ships, it could very easily lead to extreme player frustration when the AI inevitably moves outside of that radius: thats a lot less player control, and turns an interactive, deterministic system into a passive semi random one. If the radius is too large however, then every smaller ship will share the PPT of the largest, longest PPT ship in the area (which is still semi-random if the frigate is forced out of the area, and rather exploitable as well), and the design principle of PPT of stopping small ships from kiting becomes violated. If thats the case, then it would be better to abandon PPT as an individually tracked resource at all, and rather have a "fleet" PPT equal to the largest ship deployed at the start of battle. (Which isn't a terrible idea: Hardened Subsystems gets renamed "Command and Control" and becomes an expensive hullmod that the player would install just on their longest PPT ship. Light Cruisers and their long PPT have a real role as the command ships of a destroyer flotilla. HMMM.)

My objections to the radius system (lack of player control, semi random, invalidates design principles of PPT/CR system) however don't apply to the player ship: By definition, the player has full control over their own ship. In that case, I could see a radius stopping just the player ship from ticking down CR being viable. However even that runs into a problem: how to communicate what that radius is to the player, other than keeping an eagle eye on the PPT gauge.

... or carriers under 100% replenishment

This seems a little overly harsh on carriers. I agree they need balance tweaks, but CR isn't meant to be the main limiting factor to their effectiveness like its supposed to be on SO and phase ships. It also begs the question of what exactly counts as a carrier: does any destroyer with CH count? What about a frigate with a drone system?

[TaLaR]

I think radius based approach could work for AI too - in most cases executing escort order would already put them within necessary radius. Or just sitting on defend order with larger ships.
And if they get pushed away from escort target - well... Good job, enemy team! Defeat in detail is valid tactic.
If anything, PPT not decaying despite being half map away from escort target would be kind of exploitable.

Escort order as it exists now can often lead to sub-optimal or sometimes suicidal behavior, I really prefer to use Defend, which wouldn't be an option under your proposal.

However even that runs into a problem: how to communicate what that radius is to the player, other than keeping an eagle eye on the PPT gauge.

Game already hides a bit too much info to my liking - exact ship system radius (my), ship velocity vectors (my and target), exact collision radius (target, needed to know where you can place mines/teleport), exact ship explosion radius (target, for phase ships). Of course stuff like this should be optional and off by default. Highlighting areas of PPT protection from allied ships would fall in same category.
Could also add more visible indicator of when PPT/CR is ticking.

... or carriers under 100% replenishment

This seems a little overly harsh on carriers. I agree they need balance tweaks, but CR isn't meant to be the main limiting factor to their effectiveness like its supposed to be on SO and phase ships. It also begs the question of what exactly counts as a carrier: does any destroyer with CH count? What about a frigate with a drone system?

True, maybe carriers don't really need an exception here.

[SCC]

Huh. I just went in to check it in the game and carriers already lose PPT/CR, if they have fewer than 50% of their fighters. Or something like that, I didn't manage to figure how it works, exactly.

This seems a little overly harsh on carriers. I agree they need balance tweaks, but CR isn't meant to be the main limiting factor to their effectiveness like its supposed to be on SO and phase ships. It also begs the question of what exactly counts as a carrier: does any destroyer with CH count? What about a frigate with a drone system?

They do lose PPT/CR, actually.

[bobucles]

Frankly, PPT should just have less swing between ship classes. Smaller ships should have more, and larger ships should have less(yes, less, the large scale battles drag on forever). There is already an existing rule where a fleet with overwhelming superiority does not lose PPT. It takes care of tiny pests attempting to PPT burn large ships, because they can't even start the big ship's PPT timer.

Modest tweaks to the PPT burning rules can make sure that weaker fleets have difficulty dealing with superior fleets.

[BringerofBabies]

Forcing fighters of escorting carriers into Support functions would also prevent any player confusion of what sort of escort they get when they assign a carrier to escort - just the carrier escorts while fighters have fun elsewhere vs. an escort with the full firepower of the fighter wings.

There have often been requests for some sort of "wolf pack" order, where ships attempt to fight together without necessarily escorting or defending each other. Changing the escort behavior to have the discussed effects would be a good time to add such a wolf pack order, so that frigates could stick with other ships while acting aggressively and PPT ticking down, and carriers could be assigned to stay near other vessels while their fighters are not kept leashed.

[Megas]

I would not want less PPT on bigger ships.  They already need all of the PPT they can get, especially if map size is smaller than 500.  If anything, ALL ships need more PPT.  PPT remains mostly the same since 0.6a, but fleets bloated since 0.7a.  PPT and map size have not kept up with size creep.

[bobucles]

I would not want less PPT on bigger ships.  They already need all of the PPT they can get, especially if map size is smaller than 500.  If anything, ALL ships need more PPT.  PPT remains mostly the same since 0.6a, but fleets bloated since 0.7a.  PPT and map size have not kept up with size creep.

TL: I need more PPT to survive gigantic battles

The entire point of PPT is to not allow gigantic battles. If the player fights 300 DP of ships against their 50 DP of ships, it doesn't matter if the 50 DP has god mode. The smaller fleet is meant to lose by PPT exhaustion. Extremely long PPT does the opposite of that, letting tiny hard fleets pound their way through endless hordes of zombies. That may be fun for its own reasons, but it ultimately makes the average late game battles last way too long. It's better to lose quickly and teach a lesson to not take on huge battles alone. There's nothing wrong with asking for a global PPT doubling mod, but under game defaults the mechanics should strive to maintain a good balance between excitement and duration.

One example that I vague remember is a streamer fighting a last stand with his fleet against around 600 (or more!) enemy ships. He managed to blast through around 200 of the smallest ships before his last flagship burned out. It was an impressive battle for sure, but between the extreme slowdown and swapping in fresh ships it took supposedly around 2 hours.

[Megas]

The entire point of PPT is to not allow gigantic battles. If the player fights 300 DP of ships against their 50 DP of ships, it doesn't matter if the 50 DP has god mode. The smaller fleet is meant to lose by PPT exhaustion. Extremely long PPT does the opposite of that, letting tiny hard fleets pound their way through endless hordes of zombies. That may be fun for its own reasons, but it ultimately makes the average late game battles last way too long. It's better to lose quickly and teach a lesson to not take on huge battles alone.

With the current endgame battles, all that reducing PPT for large ships will do is force more multi-round combat, which is worse than what we have now.  Fights will be even longer because player will edge-camp to minimize travel to retreat.  Player will not spend less time fighting in the whole encounter, spread out in multiple rounds and bleeding more CR, but will spend more time traveling (due to forced retreat) and more time navigating through menus between rounds.

PPT for current endgame battles is insufficient for some ships.  Remember that PPT were set when the biggest fleet was Hegemony System Defense Fleet, equivalent to modern day 200k bounty.  Aside, that test pic for the new endgame fleet with tons of officers is similar in size to a HSDF.

[Plantissue]

Escort orders work in a funny way. If you tell a ship to stop escorting another ship, that formerly escorted ship will have other ships assigned to it automatically as an escort order remains on that formerly escorted ship. So you have to remove the escort order attached to that ship.

I have a feeling it will be hard for the AI to make use of this ability intelligently. It may even end up wasting all its command points, though I am uncertain whether it even does use command points in the first place.