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[Avan]

because its unrealistic to assume you can run forever (nominally you would run out of supplies, etc), this should be on a formula, where the slower the fleets relative speed, the faster it gives up, also meaning you don't have to Chase a barely slower fleet half way across the system.

Nevermind, forgot that we eventually get fleet splitting. How could possibly I forget that? No idea, anyways, nothing to see here. >.<

[blackfang]

Then might i suggest a way to get those pesky runners? Basically if they got a point they want to go to (meaning they are not on raiding the system) you can figure out where they want to go. Just position yourself between where they want to go and them. Then you first chase them and then turn around and then feint and turn back around. They will run right into you providing they don't have a lot more speed and maneuverability. Ofcourse what you suggested is a smart although its not in (yet) so you can use this tactic some times until then:)

[Paul]

You mean marginally slower? If an AI fleet is marginally faster, it's you who should give up chasing  

I don't see why they should just give up running though. If you were running from a group of people intent on killing you, but noticed that they were slowly but steadily gaining on you over time, would you just go "Oh well, they'll catch me eventually anyway. I'll just stop and let them beat me to death." or would you keep running and hoping that someone else would show up to help you?

If I had people chasing me with the intent to kill me, I'd sure as hell run as fast as I can for as long as I can even if I ran out of food and water on the way.

The smart solution would be signaling for help and curving their route toward would-be rescuers.

[Avan]

No, when they run away.

The thing is, is that they can attempt escape through you again, and it makes no sense for them to perpetually be running away farther and father away from the system.

The problem with the way the fleets are now, is that the player generally needs to prey on smaller or similar-sized fleets, which tend to be faster, but only by a couple points. This results to things like the player camping the spawn points, and other exploitive tactics

The idea here is that:

If the fleet is really fast, it won't turn around and attempt to initiate an [escape] battle. Makes sense, since they can both easily outrun you to safety, and they know they stand utterly no chance.

If the fleet is marginally faster, they might turn around after a while, and then attempt to [escape]. They realize that they aren't getting anywhere useful fast, and they do stand a chance of survival

If the fleet is of equal speed or marginally slower, they will turn around pretty quickly, and try to [defend] or [escape]. They stand a chance at survival.

If the fleet is significantly slower, well, they don't fall within the scope of this issue.

[Paul]

If they're marginally faster, why should they turn around and attack a superior force? They're faster than you, which means they can stay away from you indefinitely. I can see them slowly curving back toward the planets, but they wouldn't need to attack you to do that. Same as if they're equal speed - they could just maneuver around in a really big curve if they wanted to get back near planets and stay away from you indefinitely.

Slightly slower ships would ideally do the same - stay away from you as long as possible, attempting to get closer to friendlies that are big enough to attack you. Multiple enemy fleets being able to join against you would be ideal - run away from you to some friendly fleets, then all together turn around and chase you.

[icepick37]

Yeah I'm not gonna lie. The problem here is not that they aren't giving up.    You can't make the AI do something you wouldn't do...  You're not gonna just stop and take it...

[Durandal4532]

For gameplay purposes, though, having these extremely long fleet chases isn't actually fun. I wouldn't mind what was (I think) discussed a while ago: having small portions of your fleet that are faster go ahead and stop the people you're pursuing, or slow them. Obviously incurring some cost.

[icepick37]

So stop chasing obviously faster fleets.

The only thing that needs to be in the game is some indicator of their speed so you know when a chase is futile. That is my suggestion. But I think that it's obvious and assume it'll be in eventually.

[Avan]

Well, not all the fleets are faster, sometimes they move 0.25px/s slower than you do, and you can EVENTUALLY catch up to them, but by then you are beyond the boundaries of the map screen.

And to assume that they could stay away from you indefinitely is immersion breaking (As is the notion that you can follow them indefinitely, but it becomes more of a matter of who has more supplies? The big fleet or the small fleet? Who is going to starve first?)

Or at least the AI can be less skittish, and not so fast to run away at the sight of a fleet with one additional fleetpoint or something.

[hairrorist]

You always -can- retrofit your ships with enhanced engine hullmods.

I strongly disagree that the player should be able to outrun things that can run faster than him.

Or at least the AI can be less skittish, and not so fast to run away at the sight of a fleet with one additional fleetpoint or something.

That kind of thing will hopefully show up when AI personalities are introduced.

[Avan]

STILL doesn't fix the issue of a fleet that is fractionally slower than yours. You will catch up eventually, but WHY BOTHER FORCING THE PLAYER TO WAIT?

The anthropic principle of game design dictates that the game's design should revolve around the player's perception; a detailed and accurate simulation is simply a means to adding to that perception; if it frustrates the player, you're doing it wrong. If something in the game becomes an unintentional scrappy mechanic for the player (For reasons other than requiring actual skill; ie, if the veteran player gets as frustrated as the newbie because they have to grind, thats a problem. If the newbie is getting frustrated because he can't beat some boss, and the veteran can with ease, perhaps he might just not be skilled enough (though its worth examining things like difficulty curves and if you've made sure to teach the basics well enough)), forcing them to do meaningless, boring, or repetitive tasks (like waiting to catch up with a fleeing fleet and then attempting to navigate back into the system without the lovely infinite devmode zoom), then it is bad design, and should be changed.

Ok, well I suppose a major factor contributing to my frustration is the fact that the current fleet speed calculations are not very good, and so it tends to be hard to catch anything without camping the spawn points.

Also there is the tendency for a fleeing AI fleet to flee from your medium sized fleet into a significantly larger AI fleet which promptly kills it. Why does it almost never happen in reverse (large fleet chases it into my fleet)? [I did do count btw, to ensure it wasn't observation bias; I was getting that behavior 5-6x more frequently than the reverse. Maybe the trick is to not be pro-active about chasing them? And maybe its because there are usually ~5-6x more larger fleets than there are player fleets in that location >.> STILL, its almost like they give the same threat weight to my fleet of a couple frigates and a light cruiser as the hegemony system defense fleet with its 200cp of ships]

[Paul]

There are better ways to fix it than making the AI suicidal, though.

I think Alex mentioned something about possibly adding a way to up the game speed on the campaign map, but I don't remember where. Allowing you to jump to 10x speed while chasing a fleet would cut down on the time required to catch them significantly.

As far as leaving the game map and having to click for a long time to get back, that's more of a limitation with the current alpha build than bad design. When we have multiple systems ships might just jump out of the system instead of fly endlessly away - requiring you to jump after them (burning fuel), or leave them be. And when we can set courses using the tab map it will be easier to fly places - just click a station or planet and watch your fleet go.

[LuckStealer]

because its unrealistic to assume you can run forever (nominally you would run out of supplies, etc), this should be on a formula, where the slower the fleets relative speed, the faster it gives up, also meaning you don't have to Chase a barely slower fleet half way across the system.

or maybe you can take like 2-3 ships whit you and go ahead, the rest of the fleet will follow you while you catch up the enemy, after the battle you can rejoin whit your flleet

[blackfang]

which brings me back to another post i made. Moar fleety action, i want universal conquest with multiple fleets:D Not me alone doing everything.

[Avan]

because its unrealistic to assume you can run forever (nominally you would run out of supplies, etc), this should be on a formula, where the slower the fleets relative speed, the faster it gives up, also meaning you don't have to Chase a barely slower fleet half way across the system.

or maybe you can take like 2-3 ships whit you and go ahead, the rest of the fleet will follow you while you catch up the enemy, after the battle you can rejoin whit your flleet

DERP. Yeah, I completely forgot about this eventually getting added when I made the post.