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Author Topic: System-Map Stealth  (Read 5515 times)

DatonKallandor

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System-Map Stealth
« on: October 04, 2013, 10:44:49 AM »

Now I've been playing some Pirate runs recently and figured - hey, why I see where everyone is? And why can everyone see where I am? Wouldn't pirates get completely destroyed in a world where sensors cover the entire system and are unbeatable?

So I've come up with a potential system that will make playing a Pirate a little more interesting - and maybe even help out AI pirates:

Fleets that are static on the system map slowly accrue "stealth" points. Every fleet rolls a sensor check (or if you don't like randomness, a straight comparison check) when a fleet with stealth points comes within a certain distance of it. If they beat the stealth the static fleet is revealed, if they don't it stays hidden.

Now as long as moving doesn't instantly deplete your stealth points (you could have them vanish fairly quickly over the course of a few seconds) the ambushing fleet - if it guesses the intended victims course right and lays up ahead for long enough to become hidden - can quickly pounce on the unsuspecting fleet. This could give you a special pre-combat dialogue with a couple of extra options to take apart from the usual "engage, disengage, etc.". Maybe a special "ambush" battle option - similar to a Pursuit in that you can deploy frigates and fighters from several angles, maybe even with reduced CP for the enemy fleet to represent them having to suddenly scramble ships to respond.

The latter option especially would let smaller fleets defeat bigger fleets by ambushing - as long as they can inflict enough casualties in the opening battle (in which they've got a huge positional and numerical advantage) to make the follow up battle (which is back to the default battle options and thus more even) winnable.

Best of all this approach to stealth opens up some avenues for skills as well: Better sensors (isn't there already a sensor skill this could be added to?), faster stealth gain, slower stealth loss when moving.

And lastly the whole thing is very player skill based - you need to guess fairly well what approach the fleet you want to ambush is going to take. Although the ability to station-keep with orbital objects while remaining "static" would truly help if this system is adapted.

I've deliberately kept the numbers and stuff vague because that's all open for balance concerns - but basically: Less than total vision over the whole system at all times, more "kinds" of battles than just straight field battles and pursuits, deeper gameplay for pirates and blockades.

Thoughts?
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xenoargh

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #1 on: October 04, 2013, 12:35:03 PM »

I like the basic idea a lot; it's really important that the player not know where everybody is and get ambushed sometimes, and it would be very cool if the player could do this too :)
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thebrucolac

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #2 on: October 04, 2013, 12:40:52 PM »

Having fleets be hard to detect base and rely on a sensors skill to spot them at a distance might work. Nebulae, asteroid fields, solar coronas and other things could impact the ability, making ambushes more location based. If you could affect sensor range with hull mods and potentially have a command ship littered with sensory devices, that would be an interesting addition to the fleet mechanics.
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Flare

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #3 on: October 04, 2013, 12:50:45 PM »

Now I've been playing some Pirate runs recently and figured - hey, why I see where everyone is? And why can everyone see where I am? Wouldn't pirates get completely destroyed in a world where sensors cover the entire system and are unbeatable?

Space is an incredibly friendly sensor environment, mostly because there is no environment to speak of almost all of the time.

For further reading, this provides a lot of very interesting info on using the real world applications for setting believability. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php
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Wyvern

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #4 on: October 04, 2013, 12:57:06 PM »

At one point Alex commented that, someday, phase ships might be able to cloak themselves on the main map.  Personally, I think that'd be awesome - it'd give a good use to even the Doom; imagine a pirate fleet descending upon a seemingly hapless freighter... only to find themselves under attack by a phase cruiser with a pair of heavy blasters (and some supporting phase frigates).
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Gothars

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #5 on: October 04, 2013, 01:00:59 PM »

At one point Alex commented that, someday, phase ships might be able to cloak themselves on the main map. 

Do you have a link? I only remember that he mentioned they might get "some mechanic" on the campaign map. Granted, cloaking is the obvious conclusion.
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Wyvern

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #6 on: October 04, 2013, 01:06:06 PM »

Phase ships could probably use a balancing pass at some point, but they are likely to get special campaign-level functionality, so it doesn't make sense to balance them *now*. Some kind of campaign-level stealth could be worth a lot of traded-off combat capability.
So, not exactly even a "They're planned to get campaign-level stealth", but certainly a comment that it could happen.
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Gothars

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #7 on: October 04, 2013, 01:14:21 PM »

Cool, added to the not-list of planned features  :)

Say, you found that quick, got your own list with more? Uh, better PM me, I've heard the mods get mad if too much derailment happens.
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

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DatonKallandor

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #8 on: October 04, 2013, 01:28:14 PM »

Now I've been playing some Pirate runs recently and figured - hey, why I see where everyone is? And why can everyone see where I am? Wouldn't pirates get completely destroyed in a world where sensors cover the entire system and are unbeatable?

Space is an incredibly friendly sensor environment, mostly because there is no environment to speak of almost all of the time.

For further reading, this provides a lot of very interesting info on using the real world applications for setting believability. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php

It's fairly easy to hide - in the short term - by standing still and not venting any excess heat. The fact you have to vent some flux might be a good explanation for giving the stealth value you accrue by standing still a cap. And of course, modifying that cap would be another great candidate for stealth skill/s and hull mods.

Also having terrain features like asteroid fields and nebulae on the system map affect stealth would be awesome too.

If it was restricted to phase-ships only I'd sort of expect pirates to use phase ships almost exclusively. They'd be the ones who'd rely on stealth the most to ambush convoys and hide from patrols.
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Flare

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #9 on: October 04, 2013, 02:46:50 PM »

I'm not so sure about the not venting access heat and becoming invisible to heat sensors. Anything that generates heat in space is like a lighthouse. Heat sensors see the heat that an object traps inside of it. Not venting the heat will only make the ship itself much more visible because it is that much hotter.
The lack of any medium in space is also probably going to exacerbate the issue.

I personally think the mish-mash of low and high tech stuff in ships tech is the way to go for stealth. At least according to the site where scanning the entire sky with current off-the-shelf tech only takes a few hours or so, the people in SS might not have access to this technology.

As for asteroid fields, I'm not so sure this is plausible. The distance between asteroids are not as thick as hollywood depicts. At a significant size, the distance between each is on the scale of planets and their moons or even more. Even if you can hide undetected, springing an ambush if probably going to be exceedingly  out of the question.
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Quote from: Thana
Quote from: Alex

The battle station is not completely operational, shall we say.

"Now witness the firepower of this thoroughly buggy and unoperational batt... Oh, hell, you know what? Just ignore the battle station, okay?"

miro

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #10 on: October 06, 2013, 05:19:36 PM »

I like this idea, its always confused me as to how the pirates manage to get enough resources together to field the number of ships that they currently do. If they were less common, but relied on springing traps on people it could be very interesting.

Also, while it is very easy to detect other ships in space, consider the advanced technology of the Domain, they may have found a way around this. Or perhaps the ambushing ships have a support vessel capable of cloaking them all?
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Andy H.K.

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #11 on: October 06, 2013, 09:00:54 PM »

As much as I like to see more love for phase ships, system-map stealth make little sense for now lore-wise.

I find the current interpretation of "stealth in space" issue of StarSector to be marvelous - as soon as somebody figure it out, everyone know how to detect one.

Another thing, before doing system-map stealth I think we need to tackle the inconsistency between information availability between campaign map and combat map.

I mean, we can see the full fleet composition on long range scanner but we still have fog of war during combat?

Unless the campaign map goes something like this thread suggested I don't think I can suspense my disbelief on anything resemble system-map stealth. Having played R.U.S.E., I think it would be a good way to do it.
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TheHengeProphet

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #12 on: October 06, 2013, 09:44:37 PM »

I do agree that it seems a little wonky to have no fog of war in open space, but fog of war in combat.  I think that there could/should be nebulous clouds where ships could hide, and combat in them would be mostly nebula.  Much the same could go for asteroid fields, as there are many things to hide behind.

This is going on the Star Trek/Star Wars idea of nebulae being space syrup, and asteroid fields being dangerous and amazingly dense.
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thebrucolac

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Re: System-Map Stealth
« Reply #13 on: October 06, 2013, 11:46:23 PM »

Considering that in the combat map, nebulae are space syrup, and asteroids fly all over the place breaking your stuff, this doesn't seem inherently unreasonable, in-universe.
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