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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Defending forces are easily distracted  (Read 6718 times)

Gothars

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Defending forces are easily distracted
« on: March 17, 2014, 08:50:33 AM »

Maybe not a bug per se, but still irritating behavior: Ships protecting an Objective, once engaged with an enemy, seem to be unable to re-assert the situation.

I think these screenshots explain it best:

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The Nav Buoy was originally mine. The frigates did not react in any way to the second Monitor capturing it, or tried to recapture it. That they were too busy fighting for their own survival can hardly be said when the opponent is a Monitor.
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Alex

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2014, 08:30:10 PM »

Thanks for bringing that up. Hmm... honestly, this is rough for the AI to always get right. I mean, yeah, that's a Monitor, but what if it's a more dangerous frigate? What if it was something capable of hitting it from long range, so backing off resulted in free potshots? In general the AI errs on the side of trying to survive and/or provide a more entertaining fight to the player. In this case, I think you do get a fight that flows better (supposing you were on the opposite side of it), but, right.

It's definitely a shortcoming, but I'm not sure when (or if) I'll get a chance to really take a close look at this sort of stuff. It's good to bring it up, though - it contributes to my overall feel for how the AI is doing... and what it could do better :)
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Gothars

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #2 on: March 18, 2014, 03:54:13 AM »

Mh, that means an AI ship is not aware of the threat an opponent poses, beyond the class? Then alternatively, because this is a bit frustrating to watch as a player, I want to bring up the possibility of a "do not engage" command again. Fighting this Monitor was without chance of success from the beginning, not enough firepower, and I'd have liked to tell that to my ships.
But that's it from me, wrong sub-forum after all.
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Alex

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2014, 10:23:43 AM »

Mh, that means an AI ship is not aware of the threat an opponent poses, beyond the class?

It is, but that's just a number, and it's not clear where a good cutoff would be, since that number is necessarily just an approximation. Even for a human, the answer to the question "when does it make sense to break off and hold down a point?" is "it depends".

Just spent a bit of time messing with this, and yeah, it's hard to make the right call when breaking off is the right thing to do - now and again, a ship will decide it's a good idea when it's not, and will promptly die. The failure consequences for getting that wrong are way more severe than a lost objective.

Then alternatively, because this is a bit frustrating to watch as a player, I want to bring up the possibility of a "do not engage" command again. Fighting this Monitor was without chance of success from the beginning, not enough firepower, and I'd have liked to tell that to my ships.

Hmm. "Do not engage" is different from "suicidally ignore", though. For the Monitor, that command would work, but if you tagged an Onslaught with it, that wouldn't go so well.

But that's it from me, wrong sub-forum after all.

Let me move this to suggestions, then :)
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xenoargh

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2014, 11:28:34 AM »

This is probably an issue of leash length.  Ships on that order state should remain within or less than some SU from that objective point while those orders remain in effect.  Even if a threat shows up that they think they can kill, they should still remain within that distance.

There aren't any "perfect" choices; sometimes a ship is going to "take one for the team" in order to get a job done.

Players will be grumpy with it no matter what- there is no "perfect" solution.  Personally, I'd rather see the ships follow orders and die rather than trying (and usually failing) to remain alive when a point is highly contested, they have engagement opportunities and heavy friendlies aren't anywhere near.  If we're fleeing from a superior force, for example, this might mean the difference between everybody in the fleet getting dead and the Frigate getting dead; it's much more important that they cap the points than try and stay alive.
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Thaago

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2014, 12:50:10 PM »

This issue comes up sometimes when you assign new objectives as well - sometimes the ship assigned the command will be in an inconclusive running fight and no one will go to the point for several minutes.

This is probably an issue of leash length.  Ships on that order state should remain within or less than some SU from that objective point while those orders remain in effect.  Even if a threat shows up that they think they can kill, they should still remain within that distance.

There aren't any "perfect" choices; sometimes a ship is going to "take one for the team" in order to get a job done.

Players will be grumpy with it no matter what- there is no "perfect" solution.  Personally, I'd rather see the ships follow orders and die rather than trying (and usually failing) to remain alive when a point is highly contested, they have engagement opportunities and heavy friendlies aren't anywhere near.  If we're fleeing from a superior force, for example, this might mean the difference between everybody in the fleet getting dead and the Frigate getting dead; it's much more important that they cap the points than try and stay alive.

I agree with this - I feel like tightly obeying commands puts the responsibility on the commander. That said, this could be something that captains influence once they are implemented, so it may be a good idea to make this a tweakable parameter.
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Jazwana

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2014, 07:14:32 AM »

.  Personally, I'd rather see the ships follow orders and die rather than trying (and usually failing) to remain alive when a point is highly contested, they have engagement opportunities and heavy friendlies aren't anywhere near. 

I agree with this - I feel like tightly obeying commands puts the responsibility on the commander. That said, this could be something that captains influence once they are implemented, so it may be a good idea to make this a tweakable parameter.

I agree with both statements as well.  It seems like the leash length / follow orders vs engage nearby target parameter would be a variable strongly influenced by ship captain type.   As to how sticky the ship should be - that needs to be balanced against how much you as a game designer want the player to be checking the tactical map and issuing new orders as a point comes under attack.  If very sticky, essentially you'll need to train the player to watch for their ships getting in over their heads.  This also means more command points will be needed to effectively micro the fleet around, etc.  I wouldn't say at this point whether that is a good or bad thing, just a different avenue to go down.

edit: also, the AI fleet behavior might need to have a longer leash, so it's harder to exploit by the player with long range weapons.
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Megas

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #7 on: March 19, 2014, 09:59:55 AM »

When I order a ship to capture/defend/assault a point, I expect them to carry it out at all costs or die trying.  I get frustrated by scatterbrained captains that go out of their way to attack a lone passing ship while another steals the point out from under my AI controlled ships.  Curiously, I seem unable to do the same to the enemy unless I totally destroy the opposition with my flagship first.

As a Combat/Technology junkie, I do not have spare CP to waste on fixing my ships aberrant behavior.
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Thaago

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #8 on: March 19, 2014, 01:05:33 PM »

When I order a ship to capture/defend/assault a point, I expect them to carry it out at all costs or die trying.  I get frustrated by scatterbrained captains that go out of their way to attack a lone passing ship while another steals the point out from under my AI controlled ships.  Curiously, I seem unable to do the same to the enemy unless I totally destroy the opposition with my flagship first.

As a counterpoint - I would want my carriers to not stick closely to their rally point or die trying - so on a carrier I would put a 'cautious/independent' captain. Probably the same with cruisers for me. But for frigates and fighters, the more 'disciplined' the better. The more I think of this, the more I think that a huge amount of captain behavior could be controlled with just leash length.

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As a Combat/Technology junkie, I do not have spare CP to waste on fixing my ships aberrant behavior.

To me this is an incentive to keep some of this behavior. By taking combat and technology, you should be giving something important up. If part of that is that ships perform better when given more orders than I am completely in favor of it (and for fighter fleets its already true - assigning specific targets to stack strengths vs weaknesses makes a huge difference).

Also I'm not really sure that the behavior is all that aberrant. Currently ships are fighting cautiously and getting distracted by enemy contacts - sure it needs some tweaking, but that seems like a pretty good description of a combat unit to me :P. If we had some greater ability to change that behavior as a commander though, that would be nice. Maybe there should be a direct order to the effect of "sit here and make a stand" that takes a command point, does not call units after the one/many assigned die, and allows for a very short leash. Actually, I'm going to go suggest that...
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Megas

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2014, 04:23:53 PM »

In my experience, I find that a Heron does a better job holding a point via rally carrier than if I tell a few frigates or destroyers to control or defend a point.

Quote
To me this is an incentive to keep some of this behavior. By taking combat and technology, you should be giving something important up.
Big time - Fleet Logistics!  The price I pay for an elite flagship that can solo any fleet is I struggle to keep within my very low Logistics budget, especially for cargo capacity.  (Three Atlas takes more Logistics than one Medusa or Eagle and a backup.)  As for CP, I often spend all three solely on capturing objectives, if they spawn, leaving none for other commands.  It will be nice to have a capture all command much like the search-and-destroy and retreat all.  Then again, that is the only use I have for CP, except for the occasional retreat.  The only reason I put points in the +CP skill is for the Special Ops perk, which is currently useless in standard (but almost mandatory in Exerelin).

Quote
Also I'm not really sure that the behavior is all that aberrant.
If the ship is about to die, fine; but I do not want ships to run off to chase a ship to kill when another enemy goes to the point my ship was ordered to secure.
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Thaago

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #10 on: March 19, 2014, 07:03:57 PM »

Ah! Had a good example of distraction just now:

This image was about 30 seconds after I had given an engage command on the Condor. The bottom ship is me, the three top ships all have unstable injectors and elite or veteran crews, for speeds of around 190 - faster than anything they are engaging. The ships got to the side of the conflict that the Condor was on, but then got stuck fighting the Broadswords even though they were faster and would get out of firing range to vent safely - they would just go back to the fighters rather than to where I told them.

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This image is about a full minute later. It took about 35 seconds for them to take out the broadswords, then they started moving randomly side to side dodging/beaming missiles. It only took them about 8 seconds to actually close the distance once they started to go towards the target. They still haven't actually fired on the Condor, rather are slowly circling it from very far away.

Spoiler
[/URL]
[close]
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PCCL

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #11 on: March 19, 2014, 07:18:52 PM »

for that I think you should use the intercept command, the engage command is meant to convey a "KILL EVERYTHING IN THAT GENERAL AREA" sentiment
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Megas

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #12 on: March 20, 2014, 06:22:16 AM »

Quote
for that I think you should use the intercept command, the engage command is meant to convey a "KILL EVERYTHING IN THAT GENERAL AREA" sentiment
If true, the UI should make that clear instead of showing the player that ships with the given target to engage should focus-fire on it.
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Gothars

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #13 on: March 20, 2014, 06:30:52 PM »

Quote
for that I think you should use the intercept command, the engage command is meant to convey a "KILL EVERYTHING IN THAT GENERAL AREA" sentiment
If true, the UI should make that clear instead of showing the player that ships with the given target to engage should focus-fire on it.

Well, the description of the order says so. I agree that a visualization of the radius would help though, as with many orders.
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Megas

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Re: Defending forces are easily distracted
« Reply #14 on: March 21, 2014, 08:09:08 AM »

I usually select ships then right-click the target I want eliminated.  The order automatically chosen is usually "Engage" (if I remember).
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