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16

General Discussion / Re: Resume Previous Heading?

« on: November 12, 2019, 10:41:58 AM »

Thanks for the quick replies!

(Hrm, out of perverse curiosity, start a new tutorial and see if this information is mentioned to new players?)

17

General Discussion / Re: Just Sustained Burn All The Time?

« on: November 12, 2019, 10:36:26 AM »

Thanks for the quick replies!

I've heard of bouncing off of hyperspace storms, but early game, it just seems to eat up supplies for repairs like mad, and much of the time knocks me sideways - or backwards. So not worth it. I've been manually avoiding as much deep hyperspace "clouds" as possible. Going out to the "fringe" of the sector on investigate probe/survey planet missions, with just enough supplies for the ship upkeep and surveys, it really wasn't a survivable option!

18

General Discussion / Resume Previous Heading?

« on: November 12, 2019, 10:17:46 AM »

So, I'm "autopiloting" along when I discover an inconveniently-placed star, wish to circle an asteroid belt, dodge a hyperspace storm, ect. And take manual control temporarily. After that, the fleet just coasts to a complete stop, though the arrow indicating the course I plotted still shows. (So I can manually pilot along the heading, but it's more work!)

Is there some button/feature of a plotted course to "resume previous heading" and let the "autopilot" take over again that I'm missing? Currently the only way I can do this that I know of is to Tab (open navigation) and re-plot the course all over again. This is a royal pain if 5 seconds later I encounter another hyperspace storm.

19

General Discussion / Just Sustained Burn All The Time?

« on: November 12, 2019, 10:12:02 AM »

Started on a Campaign, and I find myself obsessed with the fastest travel time (because time is money) and fuel economy (because fuel costs money).
It seems like just leaving Sustained Burn on is the best? Does it even make sense to turn it off when landing on a planet or station, or going through a Hyperspace Point?

What IS the most efficient Time-wise and Fuel-wise?

(Noted, I've seen turning off Sustained Burn greatly improves maneuverability, for example, when dodging a hyperspace storm or pirates. But other than that...)

20

Suggestions / Re: Combat Command Overhaul?

« on: November 10, 2019, 05:03:53 PM »

My bad, The issue with the frigate hanging around the battleship labelled "avoid" was, not a Wolf-class, but the Vigilance-class in "The Last Hurrah" Mission. which was playing "pull the tail on the tiger" in the lower left corner one-on-one with the Onslaught-class battleship at maximum weapons range.

I was issuing "search and destroy" orders on every ship in my fleet not "escorting" the Flagship, and then individual "avoid" and "eliminate" orders. I liked the way "search and destroy" made ships seek out on their own initiative sensor buoys to capture and enemy ships - what I've observed now is that is a more aggressive version of what they'll do without orders anyway. So what's a frigate on "search and destroy" to do when encountering a ship marked "avoid"? Basically equivalent to "harass".

Interestingly, whatever I was doing was causing the enemy fleet to form that beautiful battle line in response. Left to its own devices, AI vs AI, it's a loose line that breaks up into a swirling brawl, and eventually the Flagship takes on the Battleship and Heavy Cruiser at the same time, game over. Somehow my actions were influencing the Enemy AI to play very, very, well, better than it can on its own. Huh.

... sometimes a ship can be blocked off from going where it wants to if there are enemy ships "in the way" ...

Yup, what I've observed since, is ships assigned to "capture" and hold specific sensor buoys will prompt the Enemy AI to send something heavier to push them off, and then they spend a lot of lost time "hanging around" that ship because it's indeed in the way of the sensor buoy. LOL

Sooo escort behavior is a lot better now but still has issues. Before the latest version escort worked exactly as you suggested it should.

But it was a disaster. Smaller ships escorting bigger ships would fly in front of the bigger ship, preventing it from firing, and also getting shot up by the enemy. Which wouod result in two dead cruisers and then a dead battleship in your example.

So now smaller ships that escort tend to defend the rear of the ship from flanks. And this is SUPER valuable and waaaay better than things were. But what it means is that you cannot just “escort” your main ship and have things go well (and it also means that ships like the Monitor have a harder time doing their job).

Good to know!

Instead you want to give waypoint/defend orders to all three ships to place them where you want. If you put down all the orders within the same command window opening they will only cost 1 command point in total.

Here is an example of me using the system to properly defeat an enemy fleet in detail.

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16559.msg262913#msg262913

Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to do but didn't know how!

And my favorite one:
Vent, you, idiot! - ship, which get this order stops any activity and immediately begins active venting.

IMHO the AI does a very good job managing flux. It tries to stay at 0% but will play the "high side" 80-90% flux if it will drive an enemy to vent or overload and defeat them. This is necessary to win. While it's tempting to have an AI that never overloads, choosing to energency vent instead, I wouldn't want it! You'd never get an enemy ship to overload and lose the satisfaction of defeating them spectacularly. So I can live with an AI that sometimes doesn't vent.

(Personally I like the "humanness" of an AI that makes mistakes a human player might 10% of the time, like not always having the reflexes to vent at the last second, IMHO too many games have unnaturally "perfect" behavior.)

21

Suggestions / Combat Command Overhaul?

« on: November 09, 2019, 11:28:46 AM »

First, a shout out to Fractal Softworks for making a good game that runs on Ye Olde Laptop at 60FPS. AND doesn't slow and die on larger battles. OMG 

[Full Disclosure: got this game 3 days ago, decided to try out some missions before sinking my teeth in Campaign, scored 100% on Easy, Medium, died on Hard.]

Spare me your most-frequently made suggestions, (explosion mods, overpowered weapons, and unnecessary boarding actions,) because I'm starting to think the "nuts and bolts" of the Command System has... issues.

Flux, it's that important.
While I like the computer readout style, It's not so easy to "dance" my eyes back-and-forth hunting for what my ship is doing, my flux meter, and the enemy flux meter. A Flux Bar over each ship (E.G. the health bar in Zelda Breath of the Wild) would be helpful here. UI options (tick boxes) to turn it on/off for your ship, the currently targeted enemy, all friendlies, and all enemies, would be welcome. For maximum utility, I'd be inclined to color-code it 100%- Green, 50%- Yellow, 25%- Red, 10%-Flashing Alert

Avoid Means AVOID
I'm really not sure why the typical Wolf-Class Frigate assigned Escort duty with the Flagship will be found on the other side of the map, "hugging" the enemy dreadnought or battlecruiser marked Avoid! They tend to "dance with death" at maximum weapon's range until they get hit by the heavy weapons and die.

(Are multiple Avoid.Capture.Attack orders on the map confusing the poor little things?)

Escort means ESCORT
I've tried selecting either "Heavy Escort" or direct arrows to support the capital ships, but either one, the result is the same, Friendly ships hang back (even if twice as fast as the ship they are escorting) use the battleship as a shield, and then the battleship dies.

E.G.
             <HUGE ENEMY FLEET>
              \ \ ||| ///                                  *Everyone is shooting my Flagship
              (Battleship)
 
     (Heavy Cruiser)    (Heavy Cruiser)    *ALL these ships are assigned to Escort me and are content hang back and let me die

(Frigates)         (Carriers)             (Destroyers)        *WHYYYYYY

Ship Formations
Can we have a ship formation option that does something tactically not completely stupid like, say,  cruisers alongside the flagship and light ships on the flanks, like, THIS

                       <The Enemy>
                        VERSUS
                  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ (Fighters)
(Frigates) (Heavy Cruiser)  (Battleship) (Heavy Cruiser) (Destroyers)
         
         (Carriers)                            (Carriers)

Can I Have Some of That Sweet Enemy AI?
The Icing on the cake is the Enemy AI has an opposing formation something like this ALL THE TIME

(Destroyers and Light Carriers)   (Heavy Cruisers) (GIANT DREADNOUGHT) (MOAR Heavy Cruisers) (MOAR Destroyers and Light Carriers)
                   +++++ (Bomber Wing)  (Frigate)   (Frigate)                     (Another Frigate)           (Frigate)  +++++ (Bomber Wing)
                                                                                   VERSUS
                                                                     (My Flagship)
                                             (My Cowardly Fleet that Won't Escort The Ship They Are Assigned To Escort)
(Some Crazy Wolf Frigate Captains Running Off On A Death-Wish)

...I'm tempted to run an experiment and just GIVE NO ORDERS to see if the Friendly AI = Enemy AI,
but my observation is Enemy AI >>> Friendly AI
with this nice effective battleline all the time
AND use their Giant Dreadnought to pick-off frigates and light cruisers one-by-one, each one obliging by "hugging" the ship marked Avoid.

Give Enemy AI Command Points
Ship vs Ship, I can overload on flux, they can overload on flux, that's fair.
Fleet vs Fleet, I can run out of Commands, they... don't?

I can see late-game campaign is gonna be... 

PLEASE tell me I'm wrong,
There's a mod for that,
Or I'm missing something here?