Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Gothars on September 02, 2012, 02:31:38 PM

Title: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Gothars on September 02, 2012, 02:31:38 PM
Flight Decks are currently very limited in their flexibility, a ship either has one or not. (With the exception of the Astral, which has three.) The lore speaks of different flight deck sizes, wherein the Gemini has a "tiny" one originally intended for mining drones, but that has no actual game play consequences. It repairs a wing just as fast as the Astral.


Would it not be more interesting when composing a fleet, if carriers would actually differ in what is  after all their main functionality (or exactly not, but just a byproduct)?

A pretty obvious solution would be to give the carrier decks different repair times, or rather different modifiers for fighter repair times. So a talon wing takes about 5 seconds to repair, if the Gemini had a repair speed factor of 2,0 it would take it 10 seconds. Or a piranha wing takes about 15 seconds, maybe the super automated Astral with a factor of 0,66 could service them in 10. (Btw. it would be nice to see the base repair times of fighter wings in their description, it's quite relevant.)

It seems to me as clueless non-programmer a relatively simple thing to add, which would make carrier choice much more interesting. Right now it's for example a no-brainer to ditch my condor as soon as I get a Venture or Gemini, and the Astral is just unnecessary costly for everything but very heavy bomber runs.


Spoiler
A more elaborate expansion of that approach would be to introduce holding capabilities to flight decks. Maybe a condor could service two wings at medium speed, while the venture could handle just one, but slightly faster. That would allow to fine-tune carriers further, and it would go well with the those older suggestions of being able to park currently useless wings inside a carrier instead of sending them irrevocable off map (or for surprise attacks). Well, to much effort for the current development stage, I guess, so let's focus on the main suggestion.
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Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: BillyRueben on September 02, 2012, 02:38:34 PM
+1.

Another way you could differentiate carriers from each other is to give them each their own unique combat modifier. Something like:

Condor:   None
Gemini:    +50% capture rate for fighters
Venture:  50% less supplies used for fighter repair
Astral:     +15 speed & +50% capture rate for fighters
and so on...
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: CrashToDesktop on September 02, 2012, 05:04:46 PM
+1
Sounds good, I might actually have to spend some time deciding between the Gemni and the Condor. :)
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Gothars on September 03, 2012, 05:13:07 AM

Another way you could differentiate carriers from each other is to give them each their own unique combat modifier. Something like:

Condor:   None
Gemini:    +50% capture rate for fighters
Venture:  50% less supplies used for fighter repair
Astral:     +15 speed & +50% capture rate for fighters
and so on...

Mh, why should a carrier influence captue rate? Do this bonuses stack, what happen if you have three Geminis? That would open up new lore questions, instead of ending old ones (like why no speed difference?).
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: BillyRueben on September 03, 2012, 07:08:26 AM
Simple: More effective communication systems on the more advanced carriers to coordinate fighters more efficiently, granting them said bonuses.

Do this bonuses stack...
If I was to implement the change, I'd make it so carrier bonuses stacked with different carriers (Astral + Gemini = +15 speed & +100% capture rate), but not with identical carriers (Gemini + Gemini = +50% capture rate).

I thought it would be cool if your carrier choice actually had an affect on your fighters, hence the suggestion. You could even let certain carriers give a fleetwide bonus (+5% armor on all ships). It's a thought, I have no clue how OP this would be.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Gothars on September 03, 2012, 07:42:19 AM
 Mh, I think different repair times are very much to be expected of different carriers, so they would seem natural. Those bonuses seem a bit constructed to me, I'm not sure. But I feel that fleet-wide (or wing-wide) effects are more suitable for the upcoming character or officer system.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Hyph_K31 on September 03, 2012, 08:22:18 AM
I'm not too sure about the whole idea of carriers giving fighters a buff, I might expect slightly varied hull integrity and armour 'toughness' and engine efficiency from repaired fighters, but not freshly deployed fighters.

As for why I wouldn't expect fighters to receive a buff of any sort from a carrier would be that they weren't built by the carrier, only deployed.

Of course they may well be able to strap on a few extra engines, ammunition or add a better set of sensors, but thats besides the point.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Brainbread on September 03, 2012, 09:06:32 AM
Maybe... well. If you had "Open" Flight Decks, it would improve the repair speed of ships in the occupied deck? So if you had an Astral repairing one fighter, it'd give it 100% increased repair speed (because of the two empty decks), if you had one open deck, it'd give both the occupied decks +50% repair speed.

Then we could toss in a Hull Mod that increases the repair speed of fighters, or one that adds an additional Flight Deck to the carrier to acheive the same process?
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Gothars on September 03, 2012, 09:23:23 AM
Maybe... well. If you had "Open" Flight Decks, it would improve the repair speed of ships in the occupied deck? So if you had an Astral repairing one fighter, it'd give it 100% increased repair speed (because of the two empty decks), if you had one open deck, it'd give both the occupied decks +50% repair speed.

Then we could toss in a Hull Mod that increases the repair speed of fighters, or one that adds an additional Flight Deck to the carrier to acheive the same process?

That might work for the Astral, but it would not help to set all those one-deck-carriers apart...
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: K-64 on September 03, 2012, 05:20:53 PM
For the non-repair bonuses, I think that stuff like capture is going about it wrong in my opinion. Perhaps within a certain (large-ish) sphere of influence around the carrier, the fighter is classed as one crew-level up in terms of accuracy for one of the carriers. Another could provide greater sensor range. Stuff like that.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Ghoti on September 03, 2012, 06:40:48 PM
Hey I like this idea. There's nothing wrong with carriers giving ships buffs. It's not very advantageous to deploy more than one carrier, and it's not like the concept of something that improves the stats of all your ships is exactly foreign to starfarer.
extra range, extra speed, 20% more fighters in a wing? All kinds of possibilities. This is a clever idea.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: MidnightSun on September 03, 2012, 07:20:16 PM
I like the different repair rates; that could be tied into the different tech levels (ie, Astral and Odyssey repair fastest, Gemini and Venture second-fastest, etc.) to lend greater clarity.

Don't really like the various bonuses, though. I think that it's perhaps a bit silly that for a constructed reason, fielding two high-tech supercarrier Astrals is less effective than fielding an Astral, a Gemini, and a Venture.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: K-64 on September 03, 2012, 07:27:35 PM
It makes sense though. Three different standardised hulls will have 3 different C&C apparatuses. That will apply 3 different enhancements to fighters in range. Of course, with my suggestion with the circles of influence (yeah, I put sphere back there, rather inaccurate for a 2D game :P), having those 3 circles intersecting enough for them all to apply at once consistently would be gravely misusing the main advantage of multiple carriers: keeping a large zone where fighters are reliably supported and can catch their breath after taking a beating.

It does open up the avenue of "Do I want to put all my eggs in one basket for a mighty hammer, or spread out in a large net?"

Ah crap, I've started my ramblings again. Whoops.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Rowanas on September 04, 2012, 03:26:29 AM
I like the idea of carriers giving different buffs more than having faster or slower repair rates. It adds more variation (which is the entire point, right?) and it makes perfect sense that carriers should be providing C&C to the fighters deployed locally.
However, I think the faster capture rate would be a little useless. If we assume that carriers provide a bonus to fighters nearby, there will rarely be a time when fighters are capturing with a carrier in range, since fastcapping is a large part of fighter utility. Also, increasing engine speed in range of the carrier makes absolutely no sense. How would the mothership provide additional software or data that can make the engines suddenly faster?

I think that varied carrier bonuses would be best, but only if they apply over the entire battlefield (otherwise most of them will be completely useless).
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: GUNINANRUNIN on September 04, 2012, 10:55:24 AM
+1 I have nothing to add, you guys have pretty much covered all the bases. Mostly just posting to get it in my reading list.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Blackoth on September 04, 2012, 03:08:23 PM
there are some good ideas brewing here!
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Gothars on September 06, 2012, 03:58:02 AM
Little update, Ivaylo explained a possible reason why all carriers have the same repair times:

We also discussed the idea of having fighters that are "packaged" and can only be activated by a carrier's mini-autofactory. It doesn't really build that much, but mostly just activates the fighter, which is packaged in a container designed to minimize space.

Well, that's just my interpretation of it:

So the supplies would include pre-packed replacement fighters, interesting. That might account for the fast repair time, it might mean that fighters are not immediately repaired but deactivated and replacements are activated. That would even account for the fact that fighters have the same repair times on all carriers (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=4248.0), even on small ones like the Gemini! Cool!
Well,  there had to be some logistic-geniuses in my crew to plan ahead the rate of fighters in the supplies, but whatever.

Thanks for the answer :)

I like how fighters aren't constrained to carriers alone. But they definitely could use a little something to make them stand out and differentiate the classes of ships. Something to make the astral an immediately better carrier than lesser ships besides just defenses and flight decks.

See the thread linked above, there are some ideas for just that. Even though my lore concerns regarding carrier differences are now eased, I still think more choice would make for more interesting gameplay.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Ghoti on September 06, 2012, 07:33:33 AM
Haha, no way man. There is no way this mechanic could actually make real sense. It's just for gameplay. Trying to justify it is a bit of a hand wave.
For example, I buy 500 supplies from the hegemony and go blow up some tritach fighters. I get a wasp wing, then engage a carrier fleet with them. They resupply 2 times in that fight. Did I just buy wasps from the hegemony? So obviously that doesn't make sense. Carriers are the same because that's easier.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: SwipertheFox on September 06, 2012, 08:11:40 AM
This is a excellent idea.  I like the repair speeds being different. I guess a little buff on the fighters wouldnt be too bad but I believe its best to stay away from that.  At least with this idea anyway.   :D
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Aleskander on September 06, 2012, 09:40:55 AM
You can hit notify to follow a topic.

Sort of OT, but I want a hull mod that speeds up repair of fighters
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: icepick37 on September 06, 2012, 10:12:53 AM
I feel like this is adding needless complexity. What about the other stats that already differentiate them is lacking?

The condor and gemini are VERY different in terms of how and where they can do their refitting This affects how long it takes to repair since fighters have to fly all the way back to your condor on the back lines when your gemini is usually in the thick of it.

Also there's the consideration or their rarity in the campaign and the difference they will have on your fleet economy.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Brainbread on September 06, 2012, 10:23:24 AM
You can hit notify to follow a topic.

Sort of OT, but I want a hull mod that speeds up repair of fighters

Make it a choice between arming your carrier with missiles or speeding up fighter repair. So, make it an expensive mod!~
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Gothars on September 06, 2012, 10:45:35 AM
Haha, no way man. There is no way this mechanic could actually make real sense. It's just for gameplay. Trying to justify it is a bit of a hand wave.
For example, I buy 500 supplies from the hegemony and go blow up some tritach fighters. I get a wasp wing, then engage a carrier fleet with them. They resupply 2 times in that fight. Did I just buy wasps from the hegemony? So obviously that doesn't make sense. Carriers are the same because that's easier.

In that example you got some supplies when defeating the first Tri-Tachyon fleet, so replacement fighters could be in there. Well, it's not perfect, but it's something.

I still would like to see it changed, but now mostly for gameplay reasons.


I feel like this is adding needless complexity. What about the other stats that already differentiate them is lacking?

The condor and gemini are VERY different in terms of how and where they can do their refitting This affects how long it takes to repair since fighters have to fly all the way back to your condor on the back lines when your gemini is usually in the thick of it.

Also there's the consideration or their rarity in the campaign and the difference they will have on your fleet economy.

Mh... the Condor has better hull and two times the armor of the Gemini, which in turn has better shields. They are both not qualified to stay very close to the front lines, I think.
But honestly, the Condor is transformed into a dedicated carrier, giving up almost all storage room. The Gemini is a heavily armed transporter that happens to have a tiny flight deck. And the Gemini is just as good (or even better according to you) in a pure carrier-role as the Condor (or the Venture or the Odyssey)? That doesn't make sense to me.


Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: icepick37 on September 06, 2012, 11:00:38 AM
Well we aren't at final balancing either.

I guess the whole crux of this thread is that current balance is off and how to address it.

I agree that the balance is wonky, but I don't agree that adding in new mechanics is the best way to fix it. Though I don't think the ideas here are inherently bad or anything.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: SwipertheFox on September 06, 2012, 01:08:10 PM
Well we aren't at final balancing either.

I guess the whole crux of this thread is that current balance is off and how to address it.

I agree that the balance is wonky, but I don't agree that adding in new mechanics is the best way to fix it. Though I don't think the ideas here are inherently bad or anything.


I agree... Keeping it simple is probably the best way to address it.  You dont simplify programming code by adding more code...   :-\
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: Gothars on September 06, 2012, 01:17:25 PM
When did code simplification become the issue? oO

This is not about simplification or balancing but about choice, the choice to have ships with different carrier-capabilities. It's really not very complex, in its easiest execution just a simple numerical modificator.
Title: Re: More differentiation for carriers
Post by: SwipertheFox on September 07, 2012, 10:48:47 AM
When did code simplification become the issue? oO

This is not about simplification or balancing but about choice, the choice to have ships with different carrier-capabilities. It's really not very complex, in its easiest execution just a simple numerical modificator.

Excellent point by you sir!!!