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61

Suggestions / Fleet cap discussion

« on: February 11, 2020, 11:21:00 PM »

Since the last thread got locked, here's a new one.

Current fleet cap mechanic:
30 ships, each of any size, role and type

Planned change:
Player is still essentially limited to 30 ships, but can exceed this limit at penalty of exponentially increased supply consumption

Proposed change(s):
Ship limit is calculated by way of DP, OP and/or Supplies/mo and/or a new "points" system, that more accurately reflects nominal force-strength.

Arguments in favour of current/planned system:
Performance - Too many ships on the fleet/refit screen might cause performance issues.
Scale - With battle size/DP limits in battles, the number of ships you can have in your fleet isn't far removed from the number you can deploy in battle simultaneously
NPCs* - NPC fleets aren't bound by logistical constraints, and without a reasonable limit may be generated as swarms of trash-frigates to make up overall strength.

* I imagine this is a problem that could easily be solved

Arguments against:
The 30-ship limit equates the heaviest battlecruiser with the smallest, weakest freighter as far as the size of a fleet goes.
30-ship limit forces the player to make the most of each of those slots, once they reach the stage at which they can comfortably fill it. This generally means an impetus for frigates, fast destroyers and lesser utility ships to be pushed out in favour of heavier ships - Frigates and even Destroyers lack the PPT and survivability to maintain a presence in long, large scale battles involving multiple cruisers and capitals on each side.
Logic would have the fleet captain compensate for this deficiency with greater numbers of these ships, reinforcing their deployed fleet as the depleted frigates and destroyers are retreated or destroyed; However, the number of frigates and fast destroyers needed to make a significant impact alongside an adequate number of cruisers/capitals for a typical battle at this stage of progression isn't accommodated within a limit of 30 ships. In a scenario where the player has 10 ships they will typically deploy in a battle, their reserve can only be comprised of 20 ships; that can be 20 frigates or 20 capitals; One is obviously significantly more powerful than the other. A choice between eg. 40 frigates or 5 capitals would be much more equitable.

62

Suggestions / Re: Inventory / Icon updates: Turret Size and Damage Type indicators

« on: February 11, 2020, 10:45:02 PM »

Colour is already used by mount type (B/M/E - and it'd make sense to include this too), the appropriate symbol being somewhere within the icon would suffice for damage type.

63

Suggestions / Re: Inventory / Icon updates: Shortage and Surplus border colors

« on: February 11, 2020, 10:43:08 PM »

Equally, I'm typically ignorant of the price of supplies, fuel and crew in markets that have a deficit; Something like this would help the player avoid unnecessary expenditure, or know when they're getting a better deal on a given commodity.

64

Suggestions / Re: player made ship hulls, weapons, and fighters

« on: February 07, 2020, 07:54:55 AM »

Honestly it'd be cool if you could essentially customise existing hulls beyond weapons/hullmods/flux. In other words, the ship design inherits the basics of sprite, hitbox, weapon mounts, engine placements - and from there the player has points to assign to flux stats, weapon mount types, ship system, built-in hullmods, engine speed, armour, maneuverability etc.

It would bascially be in-game modding, and would require a lot of retroactive assignment of those points and determination of those base stats so it'd definitely be impractical, there's no argument about that. It'd also probably result in some pretty OP builds but I digress.

65

Suggestions / Re: Fleet size limit

« on: February 06, 2020, 11:35:57 AM »

My point was the fleet cap can be removed and replaced with an old-fashioned limit that varies by DP or similar stat (similar to pre-0.8a releases), and the limits would be calibrated low enough that you can safely bring about thirty frigates or fewer big ships.  That would be removing the current fleet cap and replacing it with a more limited cap.  Instead of bringing thirty ships of any size like now, you would bring either thirty small ships or less big ships.

I highly doubt Starsector will allow fleets with no upper bound (aside from computer dying) like in Endless Sky.  Especially when Starsector has a battlemap size, and fights can breakdown in weird ways once there are too many ships.

As for Leadership in previous releases, if you did not have any, your limits were between about five frigates or one Conquest (Paragon in 0.5.4a).  Anything more and you take penalties.  With max Leadership and Fleet Logistics, it was between thirty to forty frigates or two or three capitals.  Unskilled anything was weak, and skills were generally very powerful (though combat skills were defined more by perks).

Unless there's issues with having X ships in the fleet/refit menus, I don't think any further limitations would have to be imposed on the number of ships you can have, beyond the existing supply upkeep, the proposed supply/total DPs as fleet size limit. DPs already handle how many ships can be present in the battle at once well enough.
In other words, the number of ships you can deploy in combat doesn't change - the number you can have in reserve does.
For my own purposes, I'd want a large reserve of frigates along with my handful of heavier ships, so I can keep reinforcing that component of my deployed fleet as their CR degrades, they take casualties (which are almost guaranteed amongst frigates in end-game fights they're involved in) and damage and are retreated - and for the larger NPC fleets to be able to have the same capability.

66

Suggestions / Re: Hydroponics. Please?

« on: February 05, 2020, 07:08:16 AM »

I think this could be somewhat simplified, but like the overall idea. Essentially, the farming industry accounts for Hydroponics should it be a necessity on the planet in question - Less adequate farmland increases/adds demand for a given supply (eg. Heavy Machinery) to compensate for the lack of naturally exploitable resources.

67

Suggestions / Re: Re: Fleet size limit

« on: February 05, 2020, 06:27:21 AM »

The utility of lighter ships is already clear and profound enough
[...]
The things their relative speed and mobility and small size enable them to do better than others; Pressuring and kiting enemy ships, screening for retreats, escorting and flanking.
The issue at hand is that this is generally outweighed the by pure firepower, durability and longevity of larger ships in-battle when it comes to negotiating the 30-ship limit (and the planned change that allows the player to exceed it at disproportionate penalty).

These issues mean that there is no clear and profound utility for the light ships in the game right now.

I disagree. Your own cruisers and capitals are vulnerable to those same threats without frigate/fast destroyers to back them up, while denying you the same opportunities. Lacking frigates also means you can't chase down fleeing enemy fleets anywhere near as successfuly. They each have a defined purpose in gameplay by virtue of being the fastest and most maneuverable.
I think there should be other content that is exclusive, or more suited to frigates than other ship classes - but that's a separate issue, and this isn't a tidy solution.

The type of battle you propose, in which frigates/faster ships would be more advantageous, would do little to offset the aforementioned issue especially if they're a relatively niche occurrence, which is what it sounds like to me.

They are clearly offsetting these issues by removing non-fast combat ships from the initial stage of the battle and making quick victory by the fast ships possible without overpowering larger ships by some unbalanced shenanigans.

Removing non-fast combat ships from the initial stage of certain battles.
Either way, your suggestion would basically coerce the player into keeping some frigates around when they might otherwise prefer not to, for a specific eventuality that may not even occur.
Keeping a number of frigates (or any other type/size of ship) in one's fleet should be a decided and purposeful choice, not because the player's been railroaded into doing so. Trade-offs are more fun than penalties.

There's also the issue of DP limit/performance for such a battle, as Goumindong already went into detail on. Further, how would the game decide a ship is specifically for logistics or otherwise susceptible to ambush - what of ships (especially amongst mods) that are both suitable for combat, and have logistical utility? In other words, how do you determine which ships are the ones isolated during this ambush, and which are the reinforcements?

That, and any given fleet would have no logical reason to leave their logistics ships undefended. All fleets travel at the speed of their slowest ships so as to remain together [...]

Normal logic fully applies. Fleets are traveling inside the hyperspace bubbles. From the navigation safety standpoint you cant keep ships with the different maneuverability in the strict formation because any course change under military command will result in the risk of collisions
 Also you have to keep some space between ships in case of emergencies and malfunctions. And from the combat point of view the last place you want your transports is in your battle line. All of it dictates that fleet will travel in different small groups of similar ships. There is only two alternatives to that: 1. No course or speed change after forming up; 2. No formation whatsoever.

Likewise, the fleet maneuvers at the rate of the least maneuverable ship. The spacing required for safe distancing isn't so huge as to put ships several hours away from one-another as demonstrated by all the current mechanics and presentation regarding battles and transit.

All of it dictates that fleet will travel in different small groups of similar ships.

How so? What is there to stop a fleet's commander splitting the fleet into mixed groups of ships - 4 destroyers and a freighter here; 2 frigates, a cruiser and a tanker there? Or grouping combat ships with logistic ships of similar mass and speed?

And from the combat point of view the last place you want your transports is in your battle line

This is what I think you're failing to understand; Fleets in the game travel in a mutually defensive formation. When you enter a battle, the enemy fleet has already been detected; that's when those logistics ships are held back (which is by choice of the player) and the combat ships intercept the enemy.
Assuming the attacking fleet stayed undetected to the point of being able to initiate an ambush, again, those ships are in a mutually-protective formation.

I think there are two best-case implementations of something to the effect of what you're suggesting, but not without problems.
 One is a pre-battle option. You meet the enemy fleet, choose X ships to maneuver on the enemies' back-line. You fight the regular battle as normal; You then fight a second battle; Ships held in reserve by the enemy are in the centre of the map, and the player has the freedom to deploy his ships from all 3 sides like a disengagement. Enemy ships retreated from the first battle come in as reinforcements; Reserved combat ships are with this back-line fleet.

But then there's the question of, wouldn't the enemy detect those ships and send those reserved combat ships, if any, to intercept, picket or otherwise interfere? In which case you've just got a 2nd smaller scale battle after the first.

The second implementation I imagine would require a lot of changes to sensor mechanics/stealth. Essentially the same as the 2nd-stage as above, but with all enemy ships in the centre. Again deployment points and performance become an issue here, and again you've basically just got a disengagement.

And I just thought of a third; Being able to "retreat" your own ships from the initial battle in the direction of the enemy. Basically chasing down those retreating or reserved enemy ships while the main battle is still ongoing.

Oh, and number 4: If you're joining a battle, you can choose to go after the enemy's reserve ships. But this can't currently be inflicted on the player because whether an enemy fleet is in range to join a battle is binary; Either they're close and their ships are added to the first fleet, or they're too far and they aren't.

Relevant: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13540.msg228070#msg228070

And this opens up opportunities of attacking transport ships unless they are literally encircled by the fast picket.

As far as the game represents, fleets travel together in clumps and aren't impeded by one another. You can even see the smaller ships bouncing around within the formation.

Again, I understand what you're going for, but you have to hand-wave a lot of semi-established internal logic to justify it, while contending with existing mechanics and immutable limitations.

I get that the idea is as a counter-point to the bigger = better meta, but it's an extremely roundabout and work-intensive way of going about it, and at that isn't devoid of logical flaws, when there are much simpler ways of addressing it.

For example?

See mine and others' posts earlier in the thread. Short version: Supplies/mo, DP, and/or other "points" systems. They avoid the root issue of equating the smallest frigate to the largest capital in respect to the fleet cap, as is the case currently. Very inexpensive development-wise I'd imagine - Mods have already done it, and while it's not devoid of problems it's certainly a step up.

68

Suggestions / Re: Re: Fleet size limit

« on: February 05, 2020, 12:39:44 AM »

The utility of lighter ships is already clear and profound enough

And what would this be?

The things their relative speed and mobility and small size enable them to do better than others; Pressuring and kiting enemy ships, screening for retreats, escorting and flanking.
The issue at hand is that this is generally outweighed the by pure firepower, durability and longevity of larger ships in-battle when it comes to negotiating the 30-ship limit (and the planned change that allows the player to exceed it at disproportionate penalty).

The type of battle you propose, in which frigates/faster ships would be more advantageous, would do little to offset the aforementioned issue especially if they're a relatively niche occurrence, which is what it sounds like to me.

That, and any given fleet would have no logical reason to leave their logistics ships undefended. All fleets travel at the speed of their slowest ships so as to remain together - in which case an "ambush" is just going to play out like a standard battle. The only circumstance in which it'd make sense for a fleet's combat ships to separate from their logistics ships is if they're are being used as bait - but the mechanics to make that feasible in my mind would be a lot of effort to make work and have it be balanced, for relatively little gain. And of course, that that's not what you were aiming for.

I get that the idea is as a counter-point to the bigger = better meta, but it's an extremely roundabout and work-intensive way of going about it, and at that isn't devoid of logical flaws, when there are much simpler ways of addressing it.

69

Suggestions / Re: Re: Fleet size limit

« on: February 04, 2020, 08:28:21 PM »

The utility of lighter ships is already clear and profound enough without any additional mechanics. I feel this discussion of an ambush battle-type to expand it is beyond the purview of this discussion, and doesn't positively address any of the issues with fleet cap; please make a new thread for it.

70

Suggestions / Re: Fleet size limit

« on: February 03, 2020, 07:19:20 PM »

The difficult thing about frigate spam is with the ship builder. It's very good for individual ship customization, but working through a large number of tiny ships will add up to be quite a burden.

Autofit is the answer to that - If I'm making scrapball fleets I wouldn't be worrying too much about how well their loadouts synergise beyond my strongest ships, the idea is "take crappy ship, slap guns on, crush enemy with weight of numbers and pure aggression because you don't care so much about losses". But that said, my fleets are usually almost entirely comprised of frigates and I get plenty enjoyment out of customising each and every one.

71

Suggestions / Re: Fleet size limit

« on: February 03, 2020, 06:17:29 AM »

OP has a good point; the fleet limit, officer limit & officer cost all clearly encourage the 'bigger is better' doctrine.

Not only that, but the combat mechanics (force concentration), combat AI & ship loss/negative hull mods all favour the use of bigger ships over smaller ones.

This creates an inverse difficulty curve, and a lack of diversity in the player's fleet composition.

This summarises my thoughts on the whole issue. For all that they do better than ships of greater size, there's no strong incentive to keep frigates around when they contribute the same value towards the fleet cap, whether it's a hard or soft or semi-hard cap. Supplies/mo or deployment points are much fairer a way of determining the upper limit of force strength, allowing you to offset smaller ships' shorter CR and lesser staying power with numbers. If I have 30 frigates up against 30 cruisers, the frigates will most likely be simply outlasted - but if I have 90 frigates against those 30 crusiers, I can keep reinforcing as deployed ships deplete their CR, are destroyed or otherwise retreated. It means the player can make greater use of figates and destroyers to supplement the stronger ships in their fleet, because losing or retreating them matters less if you have another 10 to call in should the need arise. With both the current and planned systems, if you want 10 spare frigates on standby, you're having to sacrifice 10 slots each of which could be filled with a more powerful ship.

A "true" soft-cap on fleet size also makes scrapballs a much more viable play-style - this is where fighting by attrition makes the most sense, but with the 30-ship limit (and the planned """soft""" cap) you have to treat those ships the same as any other.

72

Suggestions / Logistics fleet

« on: January 27, 2020, 04:03:40 PM »

When commissioned with a faction or in ownership of a market, the player is able to request a logistics fleet. The logistics fleet can deliver fuel, supplies, volatiles, trasnplutonics, heavy machinery and metals.
The player can specify for them to
1: Deliver directly to the player fleet
2: Deliver to a specific location and wait
3: Deliver to a specific location and drop-off  in cargo pods

The nearest market that can fulfill the request (based on market conditions) is selected automatically. The cost is determined by the conditions of that market, multiplied by distance to travel and the size of the fleet required to make the delivery (incl. the cost of their own provisions).

Once the player meets the logistics fleet, they can then load it up with any cargo, to be returned to the market (or abandoned station) of their choosing (requires storage/ownership).

If the player selects option 3, this incurs additional cost (stable orbit), and the player has 2 weeks to retrieve the cargo before it floats into the void.

Of course, the logistics fleet may be threatened - the player can pay to add a heavier escort/better ships than default (based on known blueprints/commission faction)

This allows the player to continue exploring fringe systems without necessarily having to return to the core themselves, while conferring additonal benefits to faction commissions or player-own-faction.

73

Suggestions / Custom Production - Friendly Factions

« on: January 27, 2020, 03:23:07 PM »

When commissioned and +50 relations (or +80 w/o commission) with a given faction, that faction allows the player to use their facilities to build ships, weapons and fighters (up to 15% of their production capacity) using blueprints known to the player and that faction.

This allows the player to
1: Bypass commission restrictions on ships and weapons produced and sold by the faction.
2: Bypass lack of available inventory in markets
3: Use custom production regardless of whether player has own colony; an alternative to raiding and/or exploration for blueprints to gain recurrent access to such equipment. Good for players who wish to remain small fry, commissioned with a faction.

The price could be hiked (accounting for materials, compensation for occupied production capacity), and use of this would require the player to own storage of some kind.
The only proverbial spanner I can think of is the UI/internal game logic; Determining which faction(s) whose facilities you're using etc.

74

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] Nexerelin v0.9.5h "Corporate Warfare" (fixes 2019-12-20)

« on: January 27, 2020, 06:08:47 AM »

I'd love the option to request patrol fleets that persist in the target system until destroyed - ie. to patrol friendly systems or raise hell in less-than-friendly systems.

75

Suggestions / Re: I have an idea about sending bounty hunters to pirate/pather base

« on: January 27, 2020, 06:04:08 AM »

Nexerelin has a feature like this, allowing you to dispatch fleets to known pirate/pather bases (As well as carry out invasions). That said, at least with the most important colony skills, I've never found pirate/pather activity enough of a detriment to my colonies to bother pursuing personally.