2. Submissions should be submitted:
a. As a Zip/archive file with the name including the participants name.
b. With variant file names starting with the participants name.
c. To Astraltor#1119 on discord or forum PM.
3, Submissions should have functional player0_fleet.csv and variant files.
Id love to get involved next time. How do you get started?
I have a question about the capital ship rule - is that solely determined by classification or logistical profile?
Looking at the doom for example.
Stream time is 2pm Pacific, 9pm UTC, tomorrow, August 27.
Hope to see people there!
Stream time is 2pm Pacific, 9pm UTC, tomorrow, August 27.
Hope to see people there!
6pm East coast/anywere on GTM-3
Stream time is 2pm Pacific, 9pm UTC, tomorrow, August 27.
Hope to see people there!
6pm East coast/anywere on GTM-3
Hmm, should be 5pm! Did I mess something up? (Its def happening 2pm PST, as that is my time zone!)
edit:
also @thaago I'm pretty sure that ai pilots don't consider weapon groupings at all and that's only for the player flagship? So no need to waste time looking at it, unless you just want to read it as a summary list of all the weapons.... the actual group assignments shouldn't effect AI should they? Or am I entirely wrong?
edit:
also @thaago I'm pretty sure that ai pilots don't consider weapon groupings at all and that's only for the player flagship? So no need to waste time looking at it, unless you just want to read it as a summary list of all the weapons.... the actual group assignments shouldn't effect AI should they? Or am I entirely wrong?
It actually makes quite a difference. One that has come up a lot in the Onslaught thread is separating its TPCs in different groups just so the AI fires one at a time. It's also smart putting missiles on alternating so the AI doesn't fire everything immediately. And in general it's just a good idea in case you want to switch to a different ship in the middle of combat.
edit:
also @thaago I'm pretty sure that ai pilots don't consider weapon groupings at all and that's only for the player flagship? So no need to waste time looking at it, unless you just want to read it as a summary list of all the weapons.... the actual group assignments shouldn't effect AI should they? Or am I entirely wrong?
It actually makes quite a difference. One that has come up a lot in the Onslaught thread is separating its TPCs in different groups just so the AI fires one at a time. It's also smart putting missiles on alternating so the AI doesn't fire everything immediately. And in general it's just a good idea in case you want to switch to a different ship in the middle of combat.
Noticed just how many of the fleet were using vultures in the 1st round. It seems to be the "go-to" non-carrier cruiser in vanilla+SWP setup.
Hi Thaago!
Are there any plans of publishing fleets variants files? I want to see builds :D
Yeah I think sabot's were nerfed to be in a totally good place for players. However the ai doesn't seem to have the ability to predict the sabot behavior. That's why I'm loathe to say the sabot should be nerfed, but it's possible the AI just doesn't get to think that fast, it's really up to alex. The problem with these sabot shots, in these tournaments is that it's like 4 sabot's all shotgunning at once into an already high flux shield which is resulting in like some 15-20second overloads. IIRC overload duration is based on how far above max flux you go during the overload, and I think sabot's specifically exploit this increased overload duration effect. In that case having your entire ship emp'd out for 5-10 seconds would be a far better choice for an ai pilot to make (it could just do the math on emp duration versus overload duration). Yet the ai hasn't made this choice, even once. All tournament long I never saw this happen. (Unless it was actually ion torpedos which work entirely differently and aren't worth mentioning).I don't think multiple sabots are stacking to trigger longer overloads. One sabot that hits when shields are very close to overload already does trigger a long overload, but multiple sabots almost never manage to hit close enough together to feed into the same overload. Looking at the first match of the semifinal round, I can very clearly see that the first overload that occurs is only a single sabot, and it lasts >14 seconds (the ship dies while still overloaded).
If the ai IS able to think fast enough to think during the shotgun effect, it must be unable to predict how long an overload will last? Keep in mind sabot's shotgun effect specifically was designed to be bad against armor. Now for a minimum length overload, taking 0armor damage and having a minimum length overload is likely ideal. This is a common 1 sabot shotgun choice the ai makes to not lower it's shields, but with 4 times as many sabots I think the choice's math starts to go the other way.
Basically, I want all this same stuff to happen again in a future tournament, I just want it to be more dynamic and interactive than, fire sabot, win. Dodging reapers, and shooting down harpoons with pd and such are both very interesting mechanics.
TL;DR I think sabot's are really fun, I don't think they're necessarily too strong. I do think though that the ai isn't evaluating them properly and in a pure AI v AI no admiral controls fight, they might need to have a rule that limits their use, to avoid dominance.
I wouldn't really like to see falcon (P) nerfed or banned next tournament. I think a lot of rule changes could've made the falconP weaker, for example unlimited fighter wings (if 7wasp wings can't stop missile spam then maybe 13 could!) also the banning of a second capital. Two capitals that covered each other's back's could've in theory been pretty strong against missile spam too.Look at Czar Nicholas II over here wanting to ban the technology he can't keep up with. ;)
Also most tournaments include mods, even if the falconP was the best vanilla ship, a lot of mod ships I feel can compete with it. Additionally a lot of mods have worse ships, but better missiles.
Also, also, in an endurance fight the fact you don't fully refill missiles between waves would... as usual... render falconP's worthless (like in the previous tournament where not a single falconP was fielded despite them being allowed).
Another REALLY good rule change to stop falconP spam would be one that's been used in past tournaments. In past tournaments that were based on credit cost, sometimes fielding a large number of duplicate hulls had a cost penalty of oh I don't remember, maybe 5% or some such. While 7 falconP's were unbeatable, how would 6falconP's fair against 1falconP and 6 not-falconP's? I think all of these are really interesting questions. Although if for some reason you wanted to run another vanilla heavy 15 ship ruleset tournament, you could either ban the falconP or ban expanded missile racks, or ban sabots.
One thing that needs nerfed I think is the sabot shotgun effect. Specifically the AI doesn't seem aware of how fast a sabot shotgun occurs. In fact I don't think the ai even gets a single ai cycle to even consider raising or lowering it's shields in the duration between a sabot mirv'ing and hitting. So either the ai needs to be reworked to be able to predict when a sabot will mirv and consider the mirv shotgun effect.... OR the shotgun needs to take longer and be slower and as such a) give the ai a chance to think for 1 tick about raising or lowering it's shields or b) allow a greater than 0% chance for the shotgun to face PD. As is without a fleet admiral the sabot's gimmick of moving slow, until it hits PD range, then instantly applying it's damage, without taking time to travel the gap... it seems to trick the ai pilots quite badly.
I guess another another option in tournaments is just to ban sabots until they're more AI friendly (the ai is great at knowing when to fire them, but not so great in attempting to lower it's shields for 50% of sabot hits, in order to attempt to avoid overloads. Although the sabot is brilliantly designed to still emp out a ship that dodges the overload, which I don't really want it to lose, it's really cool, but watching this tournament's it's become clear that ai pilots don't fully consider this shotgun effect... really at all ever.
For example: consider how often the caster would refer to omen's or wasps stopping harpoons in their tracks? yet sabots? nothing ever stopped them except hardened shields, and then only rarely.
I wouldn't really like to see falcon (P) nerfed or banned next tournament. I think a lot of rule changes could've made the falconP weaker, for example unlimited fighter wings (if 7wasp wings can't stop missile spam then maybe 13 could!) also the banning of a second capital. Two capitals that covered each other's back's could've in theory been pretty strong against missile spam too.Look at Czar Nicholas II over here wanting to ban the technology he can't keep up with. ;)
Also most tournaments include mods, even if the falconP was the best vanilla ship, a lot of mod ships I feel can compete with it. Additionally a lot of mods have worse ships, but better missiles.
Also, also, in an endurance fight the fact you don't fully refill missiles between waves would... as usual... render falconP's worthless (like in the previous tournament where not a single falconP was fielded despite them being allowed).
Another REALLY good rule change to stop falconP spam would be one that's been used in past tournaments. In past tournaments that were based on credit cost, sometimes fielding a large number of duplicate hulls had a cost penalty of oh I don't remember, maybe 5% or some such. While 7 falconP's were unbeatable, how would 6falconP's fair against 1falconP and 6 not-falconP's? I think all of these are really interesting questions. Although if for some reason you wanted to run another vanilla heavy 15 ship ruleset tournament, you could either ban the falconP or ban expanded missile racks, or ban sabots.
One thing that needs nerfed I think is the sabot shotgun effect. Specifically the AI doesn't seem aware of how fast a sabot shotgun occurs. In fact I don't think the ai even gets a single ai cycle to even consider raising or lowering it's shields in the duration between a sabot mirv'ing and hitting. So either the ai needs to be reworked to be able to predict when a sabot will mirv and consider the mirv shotgun effect.... OR the shotgun needs to take longer and be slower and as such a) give the ai a chance to think for 1 tick about raising or lowering it's shields or b) allow a greater than 0% chance for the shotgun to face PD. As is without a fleet admiral the sabot's gimmick of moving slow, until it hits PD range, then instantly applying it's damage, without taking time to travel the gap... it seems to trick the ai pilots quite badly.
I guess another another option in tournaments is just to ban sabots until they're more AI friendly (the ai is great at knowing when to fire them, but not so great in attempting to lower it's shields for 50% of sabot hits, in order to attempt to avoid overloads. Although the sabot is brilliantly designed to still emp out a ship that dodges the overload, which I don't really want it to lose, it's really cool, but watching this tournament's it's become clear that ai pilots don't fully consider this shotgun effect... really at all ever.
For example: consider how often the caster would refer to omen's or wasps stopping harpoons in their tracks? yet sabots? nothing ever stopped them except hardened shields, and then only rarely.
Fact of the matter is, Vayra just blindsided the field by finding a very effective ship layout. That's what you'd expect of a tournament, though, for players to find the strongest possible layouts and fleets. I am convinced this can be countered, it's just that before the tourney, nobody else seemed to have thought of it. Most players went with SO which gets shredded by missiles and most other fleets didn't have all that much PD.
Outright banning a succesful design midway through the tournament would be a bit harsh and shortsighted.
And nerfing Sabots would be just as reactonary.
In the same vein, one might ban the Apogee as well for being OP due its incredibly tanky shield and weapon mounts.
I would advise just chilling and seeing where this tourney goes.
I remember seeing the paragon trying to deal with sabots in the tournament. It took a hit on shields, then turned on fortress shield right after (while nothing was happening) and then turn it off just in time to take another sabot hit. It was totally out of phase with the incoming sabots. I wonder if there's some intentional delay (intended to make the AI react slower so it's less difficult for humans) that is causing this. This could be an issue specifically with fortress shield AI though, I'm not sure.
for reference
https://clips.twitch.tv/EnergeticThoughtfulShingleGingerPower
Interestingly, it is able to turn the fortress shield on in time to deal with reapers, and that saves it from a lot of sabots that were synced with reapers.
I'm not sure if it is better to ban/limit falcon p's or ban/limit sabots. Neither option seems great.
I wouldn't really like to see falcon (P) nerfed or banned next tournament. I think a lot of rule changes could've made the falconP weaker, for example unlimited fighter wings (if 7wasp wings can't stop missile spam then maybe 13 could!) also the banning of a second capital. Two capitals that covered each other's back's could've in theory been pretty strong against missile spam too.Look at Czar Nicholas II over here wanting to ban the technology he can't keep up with. ;)
Also most tournaments include mods, even if the falconP was the best vanilla ship, a lot of mod ships I feel can compete with it. Additionally a lot of mods have worse ships, but better missiles.
Also, also, in an endurance fight the fact you don't fully refill missiles between waves would... as usual... render falconP's worthless (like in the previous tournament where not a single falconP was fielded despite them being allowed).
Another REALLY good rule change to stop falconP spam would be one that's been used in past tournaments. In past tournaments that were based on credit cost, sometimes fielding a large number of duplicate hulls had a cost penalty of oh I don't remember, maybe 5% or some such. While 7 falconP's were unbeatable, how would 6falconP's fair against 1falconP and 6 not-falconP's? I think all of these are really interesting questions. Although if for some reason you wanted to run another vanilla heavy 15 ship ruleset tournament, you could either ban the falconP or ban expanded missile racks, or ban sabots.
One thing that needs nerfed I think is the sabot shotgun effect. Specifically the AI doesn't seem aware of how fast a sabot shotgun occurs. In fact I don't think the ai even gets a single ai cycle to even consider raising or lowering it's shields in the duration between a sabot mirv'ing and hitting. So either the ai needs to be reworked to be able to predict when a sabot will mirv and consider the mirv shotgun effect.... OR the shotgun needs to take longer and be slower and as such a) give the ai a chance to think for 1 tick about raising or lowering it's shields or b) allow a greater than 0% chance for the shotgun to face PD. As is without a fleet admiral the sabot's gimmick of moving slow, until it hits PD range, then instantly applying it's damage, without taking time to travel the gap... it seems to trick the ai pilots quite badly.
I guess another another option in tournaments is just to ban sabots until they're more AI friendly (the ai is great at knowing when to fire them, but not so great in attempting to lower it's shields for 50% of sabot hits, in order to attempt to avoid overloads. Although the sabot is brilliantly designed to still emp out a ship that dodges the overload, which I don't really want it to lose, it's really cool, but watching this tournament's it's become clear that ai pilots don't fully consider this shotgun effect... really at all ever.
For example: consider how often the caster would refer to omen's or wasps stopping harpoons in their tracks? yet sabots? nothing ever stopped them except hardened shields, and then only rarely.
Fact of the matter is, Vayra just blindsided the field by finding a very effective ship layout. That's what you'd expect of a tournament, though, for players to find the strongest possible layouts and fleets. I am convinced this can be countered, it's just that before the tourney, nobody else seemed to have thought of it. Most players went with SO which gets shredded by missiles and most other fleets didn't have all that much PD.
Outright banning a succesful design midway through the tournament would be a bit harsh and shortsighted.
And nerfing Sabots would be just as reactonary.
In the same vein, one might ban the Apogee as well for being OP due its incredibly tanky shield and weapon mounts.
I would advise just chilling and seeing where this tourney goes.
Actually I didn't want to ban sabot's ... you're agreeing with me. I guess the reason you think I want to ban sabots is that I defended them when no one was saying anything. Thing is? For the entirety of the past two streams everyone in chat has being saying the falconP is insanely OP and alex better nerf it, my post was sort of a replye to that. So, uh, yeah, I 100% agree with you. My main point was to say that I think sabot's are what's been OP moreso than falconP's (although the falconP is the best sabot carrier and the best sabot tanker both at once it seems). I don't think the sabot's need to be made less effective or worse, but there is straight up something wrong with the ai as it relates to defending against sabots.I remember seeing the paragon trying to deal with sabots in the tournament. It took a hit on shields, then turned on fortress shield right after (while nothing was happening) and then turn it off just in time to take another sabot hit. It was totally out of phase with the incoming sabots. I wonder if there's some intentional delay (intended to make the AI react slower so it's less difficult for humans) that is causing this. This could be an issue specifically with fortress shield AI though, I'm not sure.
for reference
https://clips.twitch.tv/EnergeticThoughtfulShingleGingerPower
Interestingly, it is able to turn the fortress shield on in time to deal with reapers, and that saves it from a lot of sabots that were synced with reapers.
I'm not sure if it is better to ban/limit falcon p's or ban/limit sabots. Neither option seems great.
This is an even better example than what I was talking about. Straight up if an ai pilot is turning his fortress shield on, right after the sabot hit, when nothing is happening... yet properly manages to fortress tank reapers... That's a problem, a bug level problem. Either it's a mistake in the AI, OR the sabot's are literally just so fast the ai can't react (but like I said before, maybe it could pre-plan better for the moment the shotgun will go off).
Think about the retreat tournament issue. The tournament mod makes it impossible for ships to retreat, HOWEVER if a ship is within the retreat section of the map, and it decides it wants to retreat, it instantly leaves the battle before the code can use the next tick of ai maths to tell itself it doesn't want to retreat. It's possible a similar issue exists for sabots, or maybe alex did it on purpose, but I don't see why he would, fortress shield is really the only effective way to tank sabots and fortress shield is a rare special ability.
In my original point, I was just saying if a ship gets shotgunned two times in a row, ideally it would try to take one hit on armor and one on shields so as to avoid overloading (if that's how that math works and it would take two bursts to overload it for example).... but the fortress shield situation is much much simpler, it's objective, not subjective, the math is clear, it's not EMP versus overload, it's nothing versus disaster. So, yeah. The ai needs to be able to react to the sabot shotgun, the ai already knows how to react to most slow mirvs that I've seen in mods and such... so IMO if the ai cannot be improved maybe the shotgun effect needs to go from like 0.1 seconds to 0.2 seconds or however long is needed for the ai to notice (but ideally without ruining the cool shotgun effect).
tl;dr if fortress shield is the only counter in the game to sabot's, then fortress shield should work against sabots.
I don't necessarily think blanket banning the Falcon(P) is the right tactic. Assuming that many folks here at least vaguely have some working knowledge of EVE they had similar problems in their early Alliance Tournaments where 1 specific meta (Tinker tanking) or (Drone Swarming) completely dominated the meta. They adjusted the rules so that you could field no more then 2 of a specific ship. I think this principle alone would have a significant impact on the creativity of each composition. It would still allow for multiple variants (FalconP, Falcon, FalconXIV) etc to be submitted but those other versions don't necessarily carry the same meta power as cheaply as the P version. I agree with allowing more then 1 capital to 2, but limiting the capitals to only one of each type. Otherwise you would end up inevitably with 30 double paragon fleet comps. Just my brief .02
Kinda related to that, I don't get the rule of only 1 capital per fleet. I haven't seen a single capital actually be worth its DP the whole tournament, most of them actually dying horribly. Like what's the worst that could happen, multiple Atlas Mk IIs oh no :O
I don't necessarily think blanket banning the Falcon(P) is the right tactic. Assuming that many folks here at least vaguely have some working knowledge of EVE they had similar problems in their early Alliance Tournaments where 1 specific meta (Tinker tanking) or (Drone Swarming) completely dominated the meta. They adjusted the rules so that you could field no more then 2 of a specific ship. I think this principle alone would have a significant impact on the creativity of each composition. It would still allow for multiple variants (FalconP, Falcon, FalconXIV) etc to be submitted but those other versions don't necessarily carry the same meta power as cheaply as the P version. I agree with allowing more then 1 capital to 2, but limiting the capitals to only one of each type. Otherwise you would end up inevitably with 30 double paragon fleet comps. Just my brief .02
That's just super silly. Tournament in this rule-setting is essentially an answer to a question what are the most efficient ships and their combinations per 1 point of deployment (I'm aware it's a bit skewed by 15 ship limit). What do you do when you find out that some ship/s is the most efficient per deployment point? You increase it's cost untill it's price is adequate to it's efficiency. Gryphon is slower, less effective HP, less missile slots (less dps) than falconP and costs 20. Here is your solution, move falconP to at least 20 points. Repeat the cycle and soon you'll have a very very balanced ship roster (balanced to their DP costs). Double paragon fleets are absolute joke, normally paragon looses to just 3 Hammerheads, and some exceptional loadouts loose to 4.
I don't necessarily think blanket banning the Falcon(P) is the right tactic. Assuming that many folks here at least vaguely have some working knowledge of EVE they had similar problems in their early Alliance Tournaments where 1 specific meta (Tinker tanking) or (Drone Swarming) completely dominated the meta. They adjusted the rules so that you could field no more then 2 of a specific ship. I think this principle alone would have a significant impact on the creativity of each composition. It would still allow for multiple variants (FalconP, Falcon, FalconXIV) etc to be submitted but those other versions don't necessarily carry the same meta power as cheaply as the P version. I agree with allowing more then 1 capital to 2, but limiting the capitals to only one of each type. Otherwise you would end up inevitably with 30 double paragon fleet comps. Just my brief .02
That's just super silly. Tournament in this rule-setting is essentially an answer to a question what are the most efficient ships and their combinations per 1 point of deployment (I'm aware it's a bit skewed by 15 ship limit). What do you do when you find out that some ship/s is the most efficient per deployment point? You increase it's cost untill it's price is adequate to it's efficiency. Gryphon is slower, less effective HP, less missile slots (less dps) than falconP and costs 20. Here is your solution, move falconP to at least 20 points. Repeat the cycle and soon you'll have a very very balanced ship roster (balanced to their DP costs). Double paragon fleets are absolute joke, normally paragon looses to just 3 Hammerheads, and some exceptional loadouts loose to 4.
Except of course in the campaign the gryphon's ability to have twice as many missiles over a long haul of potentially a 2or3 or4 phase battle matters. An ability the falconP doesn't have, also an ability that doesn't matter at all in this tournament. In the previous PvE tournament with 6 waves the falconP wasn't used once. Again most likely because it would've ran out of ammo after 1or2 waves and then been entirely useless.
Another thing the falconP has going for it though is it's high speed. Which is especially relevent when considering the low max range of sabot's compared to say harpoons. Although as I've already said I think sabot's are OP (specifically because the ai doesn't know how to handle them). In fact the fact that shield bypass is a counter to sabot's goes to show that the AI's ability to toggle it's shields when it sees sabot's is literally just bugged. If anything just ban sabot's until alex can patch the AI on shield toggling as it applies to sabot tanking. Shield bypass should not counter sabot's (because they deal pretty heavy emp damage). The fact shield bypass worked better than fortress shields against sabot's is again literally an AI bug. I reckon without sabot's falconP's will drop in powerlevel quite sharply.
Also removing the fighter limit would end up meanining something like the falconP can just be countered by someone who brings 14 wasp wings.
Something like hellbore cannon's plus sabot's would prevent effective shield toggling. However the time between sabot launch and harpoon hit's in this tournament was usually 6-10 seconds. Which would've made it pretty easy for the ai ships to turn off their shields, get emp'd to heck and back, see the harpoon's, raise their shields, live. The ai just didn't appear capable of thinking about sabot's much at all. Again as I've said before, my guess would be that the sabot mirv shotgun phase of 0.05 seconds or so is faster than a single AI cycle of thought. Requiring ai shield code to either plan ahead when it see's unshotgunned sabot's. Or a minor nerf to sabot shotgun speed up to 0.1 seconds or 0.2 seconds or however long it takes the ai to decide what to do about it.
Are you not running an actual final? Double elimination requires 2 if the losers bracket wins first match. You can't just say varya got second, that's not how double elim works.
When we can expect PPvsAi tourmanent, Tartiflette?''No Sexual Content
Wut?pp
* sigh * What is this, middle school?No this is Patrick
When we can expect PPvsAi tourmanent, Tartiflette?PPvE (or any PvE for that matter) require a huge amount of work.
In any case you should watch the 6th tournament, you'll see how some very minor variations in the power of the waves can create big roadblocks.
I just use the tournament mission. Usally it goes like this:Yeah still sounds like bias to me. I would either set it up blind or in advance. Hell, tell the players exactly what fleet compositions they will be up against and let them build specifically for that, then if they fail it's on them. Still up to you to create a difficulty curve, but if someone comes up with a fleet that breaks said difficulty curve that's essentially the entire point of the tournament.
- I make a rough plan of what each wave "theme" will be.
- I make a truckload of loadouts for them as well as basic wave compositions.
- Only THEN I take a look at the player fleets to see if there is a fleet that would either be uterly stomped or would completely stomp everything. I don't want to favor someone just because they were the lucky one that would perfectly counter the early waves before their fleet start to suffer.
- I run the match against most fleets to find the ouliers. Usually time accelerated.
- Then I keep runing the match again and again against the couple of strongest fleets, adjusting the waves so that they loose some ships against each ones but can somewhat reliably get to the last wave.
- Once I'm starting to get a coherent round I check against the weakest fleets to avoid them getting stomped and adjust the early waves to have a smooth ramp up of the difficulty.
- When I'm happy with the extremes, I run the round against everyone without time acceleration to make sure there is no intermediary roadblock; and there usually is, meaning adjusting and rechecking everyone. Rince and repeat.
Overall there is no magic trick except a lot of experience to anticipate the impact of every late changes so that they don't disrupt everything.