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Author Topic: "Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".  (Read 3845 times)

Dri

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"Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".
« on: June 04, 2017, 07:16:08 PM »

Cooperate would essentially be a way to keep your ships in the same general area while not choking them with the short Escort leash. Ships commanded to "Cooperate" with a lead ship will still have enough of a leash to flank and even circle around enemies but will avoid the tendency to get themselves separated way off to the side somewhere (and thus become easy pickings). It would be ideal if ships would prefer to attack the lead ship's target, thus focusing fire!

While Escort works to keep ships together, I often find that they tend to stay too close, getting in each others way and limiting their ability to maneuver—Cooperate would be an ideal way to keep ships somewhat together while still allowing for a decent amount of freedom.

I'm tired of setting Defend commands to keep my fleet relatively together at the start of combat, and then rescinding that order when battle is finally joined. Carriers seem to react oddly to Defend anyways...
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Sutopia

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Re: "Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2017, 04:16:40 AM »

Too true, when I let autopilot smack those shieldless AI defending fleet, they don't seem to "stay togather and chew up enemy one by one" but rather "everyone go solo 5~10 shieldless target", which later behavior lead to obviously much longer battles due to they have to deal with significantly more attack dodging/defending.
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MCWarhammer

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Re: "Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2017, 02:18:29 PM »

I love this.  I hate it when an easy mop up mission ends up with lost hulls because *someone* decided they wanted to wander off to the flank.
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Re: "Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2017, 02:40:48 PM »

I love this.  I hate it when an easy mop up mission ends up with lost hulls because *someone* decided they wanted to wander off to the flank.

Exactly! That makes me rage, also.

Would the devs please add the proposed Cooperate order? It would be greatly appreciated.
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Dri

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Re: "Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2017, 04:06:30 PM »

Yeah, what you guys are talking about is what I want this order to avoid! Since the player is almost always the one being outnumbered, having your fleet divided and surrounded is a very real problem. All too often one of my destroyers or cruisers has decided to chase a lone fast frigate or something and ends up way out in the boonies—then I don't notice it until it's too late and some more enemy ships end up swarming it and taking it down. Another issue is very fast ships like Medusa charging up the center at the start of battle and then running into the massive wall of enemy ships where they can be overwhelmed, overloaded and then erased with missile spam—I can usually catch this before it's too late but it's still annoying and forces me to blow a Command Point just to get them to slow down (and then cancel the order soon after).

Btw, this command doesn't have to be named "Cooperate". Maybe "Support" or "Coordinate", whatever works!

I just want two things from it:
  • Keep ships somewhat together and not be as restrictive as "Escort", thus enabling some more freedom of movement to flank/surround, but preventing them from taking a sightseeing trip off to Lala Land with an enemy frigate or something...
  • Ships commanded to Cooperate with a lead ship will prefer to attack whichever enemy the leader is attacking—focus that fire! I'd love to be able to press "R" to target a ship and then have my ships that are set to Cooperate with me move in and assist me with the kill!
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Sutopia

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Re: "Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2017, 04:36:51 PM »

Or just combine it with squad mode, setting up numbered squad(ctrl+number in commanding ui) make them cooperate and default leader will be the greatest hull in squad.
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Death_Silence_66

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Re: "Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2017, 04:37:23 PM »

+1
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Gothars

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Re: "Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2017, 01:03:26 AM »

I don't think it would really work the way you want it to. As soon as your ships are further apart, enemy ships will get in between them. If the enemy is stronger, he will drive one of your ships back, effectively ending the "cooperation".


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Sutopia

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Re: "Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2017, 08:12:04 AM »

I don't think it would really work the way you want it to. As soon as your ships are further apart, enemy ships will get in between them. If the enemy is stronger, he will drive one of your ships back, effectively ending the "cooperation".


I think the main idea is make AI at least form a "line" when they are able to, not just random roam and chase to make themselves separated and killed.
They seem to be very wary of where "enemy line" is but not very good at keeping themselves in ally's line.

Most of the time the battles do not balanced numbers of hulls, and players are mostly doing few vs many (for more profit by reducing cost).
In the few vs many case, the enemy naturally form lines by sheer deployment number, and when ally ai is trying to "pick" a target, they roam through the edge of enemy dominated space randomly and most resulted in more separated  pattern.
This just seem ODD tactically.
In theory, when you're on the outnumbered side, the best strategy is to hug and focus fire on certain target, try chew down the enemies randomly went too far from their main fleet. From the number advantage side, it'll be easier and faster to take down enemy by separating the full fleet into 2 to 3 squads and surround the target for full annihilation.
The A.I. now is obviously NOT executing any of the above. They choose target randomly and stick to it until they randomly switch to another, making few vs many much harder due to it ends up many "1 vs many" when AI is not given any effective order. The escort currently is making them sticking too close and greatly limited their firepower due to possible friendly fires.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2017, 08:24:18 AM by Sutopia »
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Dri

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Re: "Cooperate" command—a less severe "Escort".
« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2017, 09:00:12 AM »

Pretty much what Sutopia said. I just want a command that keeps my fleet together w/o them virtually bumping into each other as they end up doing with multiple ships set to Escort. Also a way to prevent my ships from dancing off in chase of a frigate or w/e.
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