Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Thaago on February 26, 2020, 09:10:16 PM

Title: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Thaago on February 26, 2020, 09:10:16 PM
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:

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.
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Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: AxleMC131 on February 26, 2020, 09:21:43 PM
I very much like this idea. Anything that encourages a coordinated, mixed fleet - and keeps frigates relevant - gets a thumbs-up in my books.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Wyvern on February 26, 2020, 10:03:27 PM
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?
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Thaago on February 26, 2020, 10:35:50 PM
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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: TaLaR on February 26, 2020, 11:01:53 PM
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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: SCC on February 26, 2020, 11:11:04 PM
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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Thaago on February 26, 2020, 11:56:49 PM
Quote from: TaLaR on February 26, 2020, 11:01:53 PM
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.

Quote
... 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?
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: TaLaR on February 27, 2020, 12:13:33 AM
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.

Quote from: Thaago on February 26, 2020, 11:56:49 PM
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.

Quote from: Thaago on February 26, 2020, 11:56:49 PM
Quote
... 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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: SCC on February 27, 2020, 12:38:59 AM
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.
Quote from: Thaago on February 26, 2020, 11:56:49 PM

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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: bobucles on February 27, 2020, 05:44:21 AM
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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: BringerofBabies on February 27, 2020, 05:45:12 AM
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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Megas on February 27, 2020, 06:00:21 AM
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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: bobucles on February 27, 2020, 06:05:30 AM
Quote from: Megas on February 27, 2020, 06:00:21 AM
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.
Quote
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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Megas on February 27, 2020, 06:13:16 AM
Quote from: bobucles on February 27, 2020, 06:05:30 AM
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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Plantissue on February 27, 2020, 07:32:25 AM
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.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: bobucles on February 27, 2020, 08:07:59 AM
Quote
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
PPT does very little to change the reasoning behind multi round combat. If PPT is short, players do a bunch of short battles to conquer a large fleet. If PPT is long, players do a bunch of long battles to conquer a colossal fleet. Changing PPT does not fundamentally change the meta, unless skipping sleep counts as a meta. The major difference for PPT is how many hours you CAN invest into conquering a larger sized fleet, with more PPT allowing an even larger discrepancy between forces.

So no, increasing PPT won't fix multi round combat. Players will just pick bigger fights and run into the exact same problems, except bigger. A solution for multi round combat has to be discovered in a different way.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: FooF on February 27, 2020, 01:23:13 PM
I was about to say, "Didn't I just suggest this in the fleet composition thread?"

Quote from: FooF on February 26, 2020, 05:05:37 PM
Suggestion:

As long as a Frigate is "near" (range to be determined) an allied ship of equal or greater size than an opposing ship "nearby", its PPT rate does not decay. Additional consideration could be made if this is a skill-based mechanism rather than inherent.

You're approach is obviously more nuanced and better thought-out than mere proximity and I like the extra caveats. Along with carrier rules, you'd also need phase ship rules so that their PPT does not get extended. Their inability to stay on the field is a major balancing point.

Personally, I'd rather have any PPT-altering mechanics locked behind skills. It would mean that it is the exception to the rule and having longer-lasting Frigates/Destroyers, etc. is more of a perk than anything. It would give those "playing small" to have more parity without diminishing those "playing big."

Also, I assume we're only talking about Frigates and maybe Destroyers? Cruisers don't need extra PPT even if they're hanging around Capitals.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: intrinsic_parity on February 27, 2020, 01:48:12 PM
Quote from: bobucles on February 27, 2020, 08:07:59 AM
So no, increasing PPT won't fix multi round combat. Players will just pick bigger fights and run into the exact same problems, except bigger. A solution for multi round combat has to be discovered in a different way.

I think in some sense, the issue here is that the only way to make a fight more difficult is to add more ships to the enemy, which makes the fight take longer (whether that be a few long rounds of combat or many short rounds). The solution has got to be other ways of making fights more difficult. Maybe stronger enemy officers, or limiting the players access to officers more or big fleet buffs for the enemies, or boss ships. A lot of these ideas introduce asymmetries into the fight by giving the enemy some advantage over the player, but I think that will ultimately be necessary to challenge the player without just making the battles into long slogs. I think a lot of those sorts of ideas lend themselves more to story type missions as well (bosses and stuff) so maybe that can be done through content rather than mechanics.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Plantissue on February 28, 2020, 06:45:58 AM
Depends what you mean by multiround combat. Quick thought experiment of doubling all ship PPT would half the amount of rounds needed. There's a limit to how big a fight you can pick and even then it is a choice. In general you don't need more than 1 round at 500 battlesize or 2 rounds at 300 battlesize to fight the biggest expedition fleets. You have to deliberately seek to fight 3+ of the max size remnant ordos fleets to get any bigger fights. And it seems that next version wil have smaller fleets.

Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: intrinsic_parity on February 28, 2020, 09:24:11 AM
The problem is really that if the player reaches a point where they can beat one wave of the enemy fleet at full DP disadvantage comfortably, then they can beat an arbitrary number of waves and ppt is the only limiting factor. The remnants (particularly the radiant) are stronger than the players ships so that the player can't win at full DP disadvantage and thus can't battle an arbitrary number of fleets at once. Instead they can fight them separately or bring enough reinforcements to even out the DP. This is an example of the asymmetric enemies I was talking about. If the player has access to the same tech as the AI, the player will optimize their fleet more and be able to win at DP disadvantage, so the AI needs to be given some asymmetric advantage (radiants) to allow for a challenge without a slog.

Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Alex on February 28, 2020, 10:04:58 AM
So this looks interesting! Some good points have been brought up about exceptions, though - carriers, the player ship, and so on. (Say, SO ships kitted out for escort duty?) I still think this might work, actually, with tweaks for all the special cases - or perhaps some elements of it might be useful. The thing is, peak time degradation - and when it happens - is hidden enough as a mechanic that I don't want to make it more complicated.

In the next release, some things should combine to - hopefully - make this less of an issue. Smaller (but more elite) enemy fleets on the high end, and some skills that also factor in. For example, there's a piloted-ship skill that gives (in addition to other bonuses) a flat bonus to peak time, which benefits small ships more. And there's another skill that boosts the peak time of some frigates specifically. So, all in all - I think this is an interesting idea, and I'll keep it mind. But, I think it makes sense to see exactly how things shape up in the next release.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Thaago on February 28, 2020, 12:03:29 PM
Thanks! I think the points about exceptions and that it would be a "magic" rule are valid, so a direct implementation wouldn't work: its starting to look like there would need to be more exceptions than would be viable.

I think the core of the idea that people are in broad agreement over is that the player should have some control over PPT in order to keep small ships useful, but in a way that stops endless chasing/kiting.

A quick question: will the AI have access to the skills that boost frigate peak time and still allow them full mobility? I feel like this could be an issue where things done to the player are very different than things the player can do, in terms of fun gameplay. (Am I sore about teleporting remnant frigates having destroyer level peak time and killing me? Yes, yes I am :D)
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Alex on February 28, 2020, 12:19:00 PM
Quote from: Thaago on February 28, 2020, 12:03:29 PM
A quick question: will the AI have access to the skills that boost frigate peak time and still allow them full mobility? I feel like this could be an issue where things done to the player are very different than things the player can do, in terms of fun gameplay. (Am I sore about teleporting remnant frigates having destroyer level peak time and killing me? Yes, yes I am :D)

IIRC the main skill that does this, the AI *could* have access to if a faction was configured to let fleet commanders have it, but no factions are. It's less of an issue there, regardless, since it'll get extremely aggressive once it's down to a few frigates or thereabouts and/or is outnumbered (there's some new code here), so e.g. those Remnant frigates won't be nearly as annoying, trying to avoid a full player deployment for a long time for no good practical reason.

Edit: the piloted-ship +peak time skill, the AI will have access to, but it's not a huge deal for the same reasons, and it's a lower bonus (right now, 60 seconds).
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Thaago on February 28, 2020, 12:21:51 PM
Cool, good to know! I think I speak for everyone when I say that I'm really looking forward to the next version.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: bobucles on February 29, 2020, 05:11:36 AM
Ooh, flat time boosts. That will definitely help the small guys out. I wonder if there'll be some kind of phase ship specialization as well? Phase ships are certainly not for everyone.

If there are special PPT burn rules, it'd be better to keep them as simple as possible. One of the biggest advantages that small ships have is their ability to roam around and capture map features. What if a PPT burn rule was built around that? Say if one side has a simple superiority of capture points, then their own PPT burns slower. The side with more light ships can likely keep this bonus. If they capture all the points, then the enemy PPT burns faster. It would definitely punish fleets that can't command any of the battle space at all. I dunno how effective it would be at suppressing an overwhelmed fleet.

It seems a typical strategy for surviving overwhelming odds is to camp out in the corner. Corner camping will basically surrender all map objectives to the enemy (you can always center your fleet around at least ONE objective), so it'd make sense to place extra rewards and penalties around that kind of event. If the enemy gets some type of all capture bonus it'd pressure the player, and if the player gets some kind of penalty they'd be better served in a more honest battle.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Plantissue on February 29, 2020, 07:03:42 AM
Quote from: intrinsic_parity on February 28, 2020, 09:24:11 AM
The problem is really that if the player reaches a point where they can beat one wave of the enemy fleet at full DP disadvantage comfortably, then they can beat an arbitrary number of waves and ppt is the only limiting factor. The remnants (particularly the radiant) are stronger than the players ships so that the player can't win at full DP disadvantage and thus can't battle an arbitrary number of fleets at once. Instead they can fight them separately or bring enough reinforcements to even out the DP. This is an example of the asymmetric enemies I was talking about. If the player has access to the same tech as the AI, the player will optimize their fleet more and be able to win at DP disadvantage, so the AI needs to be given some asymmetric advantage (radiants) to allow for a challenge without a slog.
I was thinking about that. Taking into account of an arbitrary number of waves and ppt as the only limiting factor what is the maximum amount of DP a minimal fleet can reasonably defeat at once? Usually when fighting against large fleets with a smaller fleet, a point is reached where you have sustained enough damage and the DP ration starts changing. As you've been fighting at a 1.5 ratio disadvantage successfully the entire time, a change in ratio causes an escalating success, though armour and hull damage sustained previously slightly mitigates this.

Taking a notional example of fighting 10 minutes at a 300 battlesize with a 120 DP fleet can plough through 400 DP in that time wherein the fleet the retreats to reset its PPT timer and loses 15 CR and can successfully fight from 100% CR to 40% giving 4 battles, gives 1600 DP. Then lets say a further 200 when the ratio tipping point is reached and fight till CR depletion. So 1800 DP. About 6 of the largest remnant fleets. or 2.5 of the largest bounty fleets. Problem with remnant fleets is that the Radiant is particularily DP efficient but everything is just a rough estimate anyways that varies upon countless variables.


Greatly increased number officers may change the ability to fight at a ratio disadvantage though.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Morrokain on February 29, 2020, 07:39:45 PM
I like the ideas here. This discussion is interesting though I can't add much to it.

Quote from: Thaago on February 26, 2020, 10:35:50 PM
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.

Hmm this is really interesting to me. I like the extra tactical control it would allow for the player as far as AI ships go. Though:

Quote from: Plantissue on February 27, 2020, 07:32:25 AM
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.

This is a good counter-point to consider. Still, I like the idea if it ends up being viable to do.
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: DatonKallandor on March 02, 2020, 06:18:34 AM
Same on the carrier escort stuff. Maybe all that's needed is a "Fighter Escort" order as a defensive equivalent to "Fighter Strike" (with the usual automatic assignment of ships to the order).
Title: Re: Escort Coordination: Rule for Small Ship PPT
Post by: Goumindong on March 03, 2020, 10:10:32 AM
I like this idea and hope there is a way to make it or a similar mechanic readable