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Author Topic: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.  (Read 41085 times)

Alex

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #120 on: February 25, 2012, 09:32:32 AM »


If the system worked that way, it'd be amazing.  But it doesn't, unfortunately.  The problem tends to arise when the AI makes really questionable decisions, forcing you to use your Command Points to correct AI oversights rather than to enhance your strategy.

Lets take the intercepting fighters example.  I've given my capture orders and such, everything in the fleet is moving.  But out of nowhere, a bomber wing appears on the left flank.  I give the Intercept order...and it assigns a seemingly random Frigate from across the map to intercept them.  I would much rather have my nearby Talon Wing or Point Defense Frigate do that, because they can certainly do it a hell of a lot better than my Brawler Gunship.

That... doesn't happen. The Brawler will be way down on the priority list for an intercept, as the suitability is based largely on the ship's speed. The intercept order also weighs how long it will take something to get there, so the "across the map" assignment should not happen either.

That happens in all my random battle games.  The AI will pull capping/patrolling lashers/hounds/talons from across the map, and swap priorities with a perfectly capable ship that was right next to me.  Controlling points is extremely important since there's so many units (multiple cap ships), and a simple intercept command will mess up positioning enough to cost the game.

I don't think that's the same situation, though. An "intercept" has a higher priority as a capture, so it'll pick the nearest/best ship (even if it was capturing), and that's expected. What I was talking about is a situation where there's a nearby available ship, and something from across the map gets assigned to an intercept anyway. If I'm misunderstanding, *and* it happens all the time, I'd really appreciate a screenshot.

The situation you describe, in my mind, is a perfect candidate for a direct order - just need to give one to set it straight.

Quote from: Abyss
It doesn't take into account enough information.  It doesn't factor in the level of danger involved in completing its task.   Last game, the AI wanted to pull a backcapping Hound I had across the map, to fly through through 2 Onslaughts surrounded by 4 Enforcers.  Also, say I have a Wolf with gravitons/3 tacs (something that annihilates fighter wings) close by.  It'll assign the talon wing I had capping instead, and swap their places.  It won't just swap the places of those two units, but it will affect a chain of units, that I had placed all over the map since all their priorities shift.

Another example is when it assigns a wasp wing to intercept a Xyphlos wing (guaranteed casualty) instead of the pulse/Antimatter tempest (guaranteed win).

Fair enough, the intercept probably needs to consider more things (or, perhaps, less, and just assign the nearest combat-capable ship). In fact, I'll change that right now.

It'll never get things perfect, though - that's impossible, and that's also why direct orders exist. I'm fine with needing to use a direct order to guarantee a specific matchup (aforementioned Tempest vs Xyphos Wing).


Do you see that Tempest all the way to the top?  I gave it direct order to defend sensor array alpha, yet it kept moving up north east to fight an enemy.  Worst part is, it kept moving with shields down while missiles were battering it down.  It made me rage because it's pretty common with frigates and only solution I found was to simply order all smaller ships to retreat after they cap control points.

Hmm, about the "with shields down" part - that's unrelated to the command system. I haven't actually seen that happen myself - frigates are very vigilant about dodging and shielding off missiles, in my experience - but I'll keep an eye out.

The AI has a tough time disengaging once in combat. That's a tricky thing to do - if it does it wrong, it'll just promptly get killed - so the alternative of being sluggish in obeying orders, in the name of self-preservation, seems the better one.
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Dreyven

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #121 on: February 25, 2012, 01:52:19 PM »

I would like more "attack" commands with a better description of what they do...
Intercept, Harrass and Strike work pretty well... most of the time but i would like more

Intercept - More PD centered, against fighters and frigates...
fast ships with PD weapons
very aggresive command where the ship will do anything to stop the guy

i think it shouldn't even show up on bigger ships, only usable on fighters, bombers and... maybe frigates
because... i don't really know which ship would be suitable to intercept a destroyer or even a cruiser

Harras - similar to what it does now, just annoying the enemy
ships with long range weapons or missiles
ship will try to keep as much distance as possible and will avoid coming into weapon range if possible (or as much as possible)
(the ai of the piranha bomber wing does this very well right now when fighting against frigates)

usable on everything except fighters...

Strike - keep it as it is...
maybe make it a bit more hit and run for bombers that don't use all their ammo in 1 run (piranha)

Engage(?) - Sends a similiar or bigger sized ship into combat against a ship
preferably attack or assault variants
ship behaves similiar to the current 1v1 behaviour of most frigates

that would be a command to issue on big or scary ships where a ship of you,
capable of holding it in check tries to keep it away from your other ships

swarm - sends several! smaller ships against a big ship (cruiser and above)
fighters, attack-, assault-, support frigates, maybe even destroyers(?)
aggresive behaviour with a lot of flying around the ship and shooting it from every side

basically an alternative to a strike command when you don't have a good strike team or it is currently busy
also good to get rid of big ships with a lot of PD

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Alex

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #122 on: February 25, 2012, 02:36:58 PM »

I just realized something - the current captain personality system can have some rather odd-looking effects on assignments. For example, one captain may be unwilling to go on an intercept or an assault, while another will ignore a fire support assignment because that's not enough action for their taste.

This should only happen in missions, but can significantly muck things up because there's no feedback as to what's going on. I think I'll turn off the effect of personality on assignments (but not the in-combat behavior), because as implemented now, it's just confusing. I have a feeling this would resolve most of the odd-looking assignment situations.

Sorry I hadn't brought it up sooner - truth be told, I forgot.
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MileHighGuy

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #123 on: February 25, 2012, 10:03:04 PM »

All I want is a 'move here' order for assign task. Thanks for all your involvement Alex!
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Steven Shi

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #124 on: February 26, 2012, 05:48:58 AM »

Alex, we just need a detailed description of your AI behavior when you have the time to write it up. Most of the complaints here stem from the fact that us players don't know how you've prioritize the AI behavior in response to fleet command.


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Sordid

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #125 on: February 26, 2012, 05:56:27 AM »

Also more feedback within the game would be nice. I never even knew there was such a thing as captain personalities.
Though quite frankly if I was running a fleet and one of my captains refused to follow an order because he didn't feel like it, I'd have him shot on the spot. If you insist on having captain personalities in the game, then please make sure such a feature is also present. Otherwise you'll end up with the same thing as Command Points, a frustrating annoyance that the player has no way of dealing with.
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Zapier

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #126 on: February 26, 2012, 10:16:53 AM »

Captain personalities will be something you can change... you're going to be able to recruit and get captains/commanders with different personality traits that you can assign to your ships. They won't be random all the time. I think they are now for the 'no captains' issue we have.
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Abyss

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #127 on: February 26, 2012, 06:33:04 PM »

And, for the love of god, stop making AI-controlled Fighter Wings ignore Bombers/Torpedo Bombers and charge at Capital Ships that they can't hurt.
Also - interceptors already preferentially target nearby fighters and bombers.

http://youtu.be/D7EepqavWmI

Here's an example of an AI Xyphos wing deciding to "intercept" a cap ship on its own.  It flew all the way across the map from its carrier, ignoring 3 cap points, light frigates, and torpedo wings to attack a Paragon.  When it reaches the Paragon, it can't decide which target to defend against, and spins in circles before being vaporized.

The AI will assign ONE fast unit to intercept a target, while the rest charge off to find targets they have no business attacking.  To many players, this is one of the reasons why to it looks like the AI is hijacking your orders in favor of suicide missions.

Quote from: Alex
And counteract bad AI choices (No, Talon Wing, you shouldn't intercept that Onslaught).
... or my Pirhana Bombers trying to Intercept a wing of Broadswords...

Ok, now you *are* making stuff up!

Units are being sent to "intercept" targets they have no chance against as a result of the priorities system.  Unit speed is the main factor when determining priority, it doesn't take into account threats along the way, or the difficulty of completing its objective. In my random battles, bombers will often be autoassigned to capture/patrol points, where they come across fighter wings and frigates along the way and at the objective.  You might be given 2 Cap ships, 3 Cruisers, and a mass of destroyers that would dominate a capture point, but it'll send a bomber wing because it was the fastest.  Someone might say "just give a direct order" and I do use that to assign bigger ships to cap points, but the AI will STILL send the bomber wing for objectives, since the the bigger ships don't count as light/fast units.  Also, larger ships directly assigned to objectives seem to lose most of their AI, and become sitting ducks.  If I cancel the objective or set the AI to "search and destroy" any time something comes into range so the AI ship regains its senses, then the command point won't be set to recapture (the AI will ignore the backcapping) and I have to manually reassign, costing several more CP (the AI will priority shift, moving fast units across the map rather than cap with the larger ship right next to it).   In the end, it costs me all the CP I have to perform the simplest things.  

Say you have Talon/Bomber wings on escort (yes, I know it's not working as intended).  You want them leashed to something so they don't just fly off on suicide missions, yet stay close enough to the battle to actually have a function.  You want them to avoid units they'll be crushed against, while protecting its charge from missiles and attacking units they're strong against.  Yet the Talon will chase after targets with tons of beam weapons or flak, and the bombers will engage fighters because they were the first target in range.  

Lastly, why not let ships be the target of strike rally points? Why have a strike craft rally point that you have to constantly micromanage, when you could simply rally your strike craft around the carrier?   Currently, bombers leashed to ships with "escort" lose their AI (they try to mirror your ship's movement and stop moving intelligently), and completely ignore all "Strike" commands.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2012, 06:43:17 PM by Abyss »
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Alex

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #128 on: February 26, 2012, 06:49:22 PM »

And, for the love of god, stop making AI-controlled Fighter Wings ignore Bombers/Torpedo Bombers and charge at Capital Ships that they can't hurt.
Also - interceptors already preferentially target nearby fighters and bombers.

http://youtu.be/D7EepqavWmI

Here's an example of an AI Xyphos wing deciding to "intercept" a cap ship on its own.  It flew all the way across the map from it's carrier, ignoring 3 cap points, light frigates, and torpedo wings to attack a Paragon.  When it reaches the Paragon, it can't decide which target to defend against, and spins in circles before being vaporized.

I was talking about regular search-and-destroy AI behavior. The Xyphos is not an interceptor from that point of view - it's a heavy fighter. Things like Wasps and Talons will prefer fighters if left on their own.


Someone might say "just give a direct order" and I do use that to assign bigger ships to cap points, but the AI will STILL send the bomber wing for objectives, since the the bigger ships don't count as light/fast units.

Oh, that's a bug! Thank you for bringing that up - fixed.
 

Also, larger ships directly assigned to objectives seem to lose most of their AI, and become sitting ducks.

Just "Capture". They are very tightly leashed then. An "Assault" (or multiple "Assaults") is probably the better choice if you have a mass of destroyers and such.



Say you have Talon/Bomber wings on escort (yes, I know it's not working as intended).  You want them leashed to something so they don't just fly off on suicide missions, yet stay close enough to the battle to actually have a function.  You want them to avoid units they'll be crushed against, while protecting its charge from missiles and attacking units they're strong against.

Yep, this is pretty much how it should work. What's in the dev build now is certainly much closer to this.


Alex, we just need a detailed description of your AI behavior when you have the time to write it up. Most of the complaints here stem from the fact that us players don't know how you've prioritize the AI behavior in response to fleet command.

I think it should be more... learnable? as development goes on. Right now, the problem is some things don't work as they should, and you the player are left to wonder what's actually intended and what's not. When things are more uniformly working right, the system should become more transparent just because of that.
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Sordid

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #129 on: February 26, 2012, 07:01:40 PM »

I think it should be more... learnable? as development goes on. Right now, the problem is some things don't work as they should, and you the player are left to wonder what's actually intended and what's not. When things are more uniformly working right, the system should become more transparent just because of that.

Some things are very hard to figure out on your own. You just mentioned that ships on Capture are more tightly leashed than on Assault. That's another thing I never realized, and I bet that applies to a lot of other people as well. Nuances like this really should be explained somewhere. The user interface and heavily AI-reliant tactical gameplay are very unorthodox, to the point of being slightly overwhelming. Accessibility is extremely important, I would hate to see Starfarer to turn into anther Dwarf Fortress.
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Alex

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #130 on: February 26, 2012, 07:10:01 PM »

Some things are very hard to figure out on your own. You just mentioned that ships on Capture are more tightly leashed than on Assault. That's another thing I never realized, and I bet that applies to a lot of other people as well. Nuances like this really should be explained somewhere. The user interface and heavily AI-reliant tactical gameplay are very unorthodox, to the point of being slightly overwhelming. Accessibility is extremely important, I would hate to see Starfarer to turn into anther Dwarf Fortress.

Heheh, I'll assume you didn't mean that in the "gets incredibly popular, and quite possibly becomes one of the best games of all time" sort of way.

Joking aside, you've got a good point. What's really needed is a solid tutorial - but given that it's still early-sh and things are changing too fast, that's not an option yet. It's a lot of work to make a good one, and so is constantly changing/updating one. On the bright side, this thread (and others like it) also provide a lot of food for thought re: just what should be in said tutorial.
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Iscariot

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #131 on: February 26, 2012, 08:11:31 PM »

I think it should be more... learnable? as development goes on. Right now, the problem is some things don't work as they should, and you the player are left to wonder what's actually intended and what's not. When things are more uniformly working right, the system should become more transparent just because of that.

Some things are very hard to figure out on your own. You just mentioned that ships on Capture are more tightly leashed than on Assault. That's another thing I never realized, and I bet that applies to a lot of other people as well. Nuances like this really should be explained somewhere. The user interface and heavily AI-reliant tactical gameplay are very unorthodox, to the point of being slightly overwhelming. Accessibility is extremely important, I would hate to see Starfarer to turn into anther Dwarf Fortress.

HWAAT! Dwarf Fortress is amazing!


....point taken though, I still can't play that game in the original ASCII.
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The idea is that the various tech levels represent different - not "better" - ways to do things.

Flare

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #132 on: February 26, 2012, 08:17:39 PM »

It sounds like we need a thread about improving the tutorial and explaining things that are not evident through experience or is difficult to deduce from intuition.
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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?"

Sordid

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #133 on: February 26, 2012, 09:11:11 PM »

Heheh, I'll assume you didn't mean that in the "gets incredibly popular, and quite possibly becomes one of the best games of all time" sort of way.

No, I meant in the "has an interface so counter-intuitive and willfully obtuse that it takes several hours of hard work just to learn how to make the damn buggers perform the most basic of tasks" sort of way. ;) I love DF, but goddamn does it need an interface overhaul.
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Abyss

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Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.
« Reply #134 on: February 26, 2012, 09:16:36 PM »

Quote from: Alex


Also, larger ships directly assigned to objectives seem to lose most of their AI, and become sitting ducks.

Just "Capture". They are very tightly leashed then. An "Assault" (or multiple "Assaults") is probably the better choice if you have a mass of destroyers and such.

"Capture" is a one-off no-priority function, ships will cap the point, then revert to search and destroy behavior where they run off to attack things, or go to the next objective.  It doesn't leash once the objective is taken.  What I need is for an assigned unit to patrol/defend a CP's general vicinity, taking it back and preventing backcapping, but not sit on a single spot eating missiles/being surrounded.  Patrol is perfect for this, except the part where AI stops moving intelligently, dodging just enough to avoid a missile.

"Assault" is out of the question, the priority is high, so it overrides the entire fleet's behavior.  There are 5 objectives in random battles.  It means all my ships, large and small, bunch up on a single area.   I don't need my entire frontline buffer to go after an objective, I just need enough to take, and control the area from backcaps.  Setting multiple "assaults" just divides my entire force into several weak positions (like Onslaughts being pulled to side points), which is even worse.  I can individually set "search and destroy" but there are more units than there are CP, and any time I assign a new order, the unit behavior reverts to default.  Furthermore, once the assault objective is completed, the objective changes to "defend" which means ships charge off to attack things far away, flying back and forth between objectives in a completely uncoordinated manner, spinning in circles while trying to decide where to go.  Right this moment I'm looking an Onslaught leaving a contested frontline point set to "assault" (something it had taken half the game reaching), to fly all the way back to the bottom left CP, where there is already an enforcer.  "Patrol" is the only function where I can assign ships, and they will behave.

I challenge anyone to try random missions where you're not given any fast units, against an AI that is given many, where you are continuously harassed by backcap attempts.  I play on full difficulty, and if there's a way to win that without some elaborate micromanagement/escort chain/patrol assignment trickery, I'd love to hear about it.  
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