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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Minefields  (Read 33158 times)

Sendrien

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #45 on: March 26, 2018, 04:39:13 PM »

Again you have outdone yourself, Alex. I rarely ever use phase ships because of how superior shielding is especially in relation to weapon uptime, but the utility of mines may change this once and for all. Looking forward to it! Hope we can test these changes out soon! :P
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Toxcity

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #46 on: March 26, 2018, 05:23:08 PM »

Looking forward to the phase changes and the MINES!!!

Hopefully release soon.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #47 on: March 27, 2018, 02:37:30 AM »

More seriously (?), that sounds really neat. IA didn't worked very well on the Doom, it should be much more interesting with that new system.
(Is "IA" a way of saying "AI" in another language? Second time it's come up in this thread!)
He is talking about the Interdiction Array here Alex
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jupjupy

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #48 on: March 27, 2018, 02:51:37 AM »

Hey, cool!

One thing - if we intend to have different 'tech' tiers of mines, will they work slightly differently?

It seems a little weird to have a low-tech phase mine just teleport in front of you, so maybe theyll appear at a further range or something, just an idea.
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Alex

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #49 on: March 27, 2018, 08:34:18 AM »

I wish there were gameplay differences between the mine types (mainly fuses), but I guess streamlining is better.
One thing - if we intend to have different 'tech' tiers of mines, will they work slightly differently?

Yeah, I tried a few different things but the current mines are in a pretty good sweet spot in terms of area, damage, and timing, and going outside of that didn't feel great. Not to say that it couldn't, though.


It seems a little weird to have a low-tech phase mine just teleport in front of you, so maybe theyll appear at a further range or something, just an idea.

Mines from a minefield actually just fade in some ways off. The Doom's system actually teleports mines to the target location, hence the animation and it appearing near the target.


Sabotage options to inhibit shipping by swapping the IFF on mines.

Pirate IFF signals to get around the mines and enter markets.

Fleets with their transponders off could have delayed mine activation because the IFF has to take longer to rule out friendlies....

Can see loads of cool interactions coming with this

Hmm, yeah. Something like sabotage followed by a local event that reduces market accessibility for a while until the minefield is sorted - that could be pretty neat.

Again you have outdone yourself, Alex. I rarely ever use phase ships because of how superior shielding is especially in relation to weapon uptime, but the utility of mines may change this once and for all. Looking forward to it! Hope we can test these changes out soon! :P
Looking forward to the phase changes and the MINES!!!

Hopefully release soon.

Thank you :) A bunch to do, still - at least one fairly major rework of a UI piece, tons of content stuff, and so on.

He is talking about the Interdiction Array here Alex

... oh. Thank you! *facepalm*
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xenoargh

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #50 on: March 27, 2018, 11:26:07 AM »

The immediate questions here are:

1.  How do Mines interact with Fighters?  If fighters ignore them, that strengthens carriers; if they neutralize fighters, then fighters can be deliberately used to sweep, albeit at a cost.

The optimal defensive tactic is also predicated by fighter interactions.  If fighters are ignored, then meeting the attacker with carriers to assault through the mines is ideal.  Otherwise, don’t deploy carriers and don’t burn CR until it’s absolutely necessary.

2.  Optimally, mines should slow progress through a defended zone; I agree that merely inflicting damage isn’t interesting.  In the real world, mines aren’t mainly used to kill so much as to slow assaults or channel them where you want them; they’re so dangerous that they have to be countered or avoided.

In modern naval warfare, they serve largely as harbor defenses and area interdiction weapons (for example, Iran’s threat to mine the Strait of Hormuz).  

So why not make them utterly lethal, but have a path through them?  That’d satisfy both things and present the player with intersting options; maybe they’d have mine-clearing devices, etc.

3. Isn’t there a danger of having a hugely-disparate impact on ships with poor shield coverage, given how the mechanic is designed?  And what happens to small ships?

Don’t get me wrong, the mechanic needs to be really dangerous; but this system sounds like it makes the Paragon with carriers almost absolutely optimal, as designed.


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MajorTheRed

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #51 on: March 27, 2018, 11:38:53 AM »

(Is "IA" a way of saying "AI" in another language? Second time it's come up in this thread!)
Any romance language. I suspected German at first, but kunstliche doesn't fit the bill. I personally suspect that HELMUT got bamboozled by MajorTheRed and later mentions of interdictor array.
There may or may not be an effort underway at a reskinned low-tech version of the mine for non-high-tech stations.
I wish there were gameplay differences between the mine types (mainly fuses), but I guess streamlining is better.

Oups, sorry for the confusion I induced there. "IA" is french for "Artificial Intelligence" (Intelligence Artificielle). Didn't noticed I mispelled it...
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Alex

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #52 on: March 27, 2018, 11:53:19 AM »

1.  How do Mines interact with Fighters?  If fighters ignore them, that strengthens carriers; if they neutralize fighters, then fighters can be deliberately used to sweep, albeit at a cost.

The optimal defensive tactic is also predicated by fighter interactions.  If fighters are ignored, then meeting the attacker with carriers to assault through the mines is ideal.  Otherwise, don’t deploy carriers and don’t burn CR until it’s absolutely necessary.

Fighters get absolutely wrecked if they hit mines, but also don't trigger mine spawns, so it's a mixed bag. "Mine sweeping" isn't something you can do because mines are unlimited.


3. Isn’t there a danger of having a hugely-disparate impact on ships with poor shield coverage, given how the mechanic is designed?  And what happens to small ships?

Even the slowest ship in the game could avoid a mine strike through movement. Combine that with shields, point-defense, flares/EMP system/etc, and there are so many layers of damage-avoidance that every ship has access to something. Frigates have more to fear since a single hit can cripple or destroy one outright, but mines are far from the only thing that can erase a frigate in a vs-star-fortress fight, so they're nothing special in that sense. An Omen or a Monitor will do well, a Wolf probably won't.

All in all, a minefield will definitely change how you approach a fight, but then that's the point.


Oups, sorry for the confusion I induced there. "IA" is french for "Artificial Intelligence" (Intelligence Artificielle). Didn't noticed I mispelled it...

Ahh, thank you for clearing that up. Good to know - now that you mention it, I think that's come up before. I'll try to remember it :)
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icepick37

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #53 on: March 27, 2018, 02:19:04 PM »

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!

Love the doomie buff.

Crazy how many toys are packing into this next update.
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SCC

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #54 on: March 27, 2018, 03:13:45 PM »

1.  How do Mines interact with Fighters?  If fighters ignore them, that strengthens carriers; if they neutralize fighters, then fighters can be deliberately used to sweep, albeit at a cost.

The optimal defensive tactic is also predicated by fighter interactions.  If fighters are ignored, then meeting the attacker with carriers to assault through the mines is ideal.  Otherwise, don’t deploy carriers and don’t burn CR until it’s absolutely necessary.

Fighters get absolutely wrecked if they hit mines, but also don't trigger mine spawns, so it's a mixed bag. "Mine sweeping" isn't something you can do because mines are unlimited.
This is interesting. I suspected Doom to be a doom to fighters, seeing it's performance against Astral, but if a ship has to trigger it, it seemingly can't stop an attack in progress. I guess it'll be better at harassing or forcing enemy to split up.

Alex

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #55 on: March 27, 2018, 03:18:07 PM »

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!

Love the doomie buff.

Crazy how many toys are packing into this next update.

!!

This is interesting. I suspected Doom to be a doom to fighters, seeing it's performance against Astral, but if a ship has to trigger it, it seemingly can't stop an attack in progress. I guess it'll be better at harassing or forcing enemy to split up.

I think I was unclear. Mines are triggered by both ships and fighters. Mine *spawning* from a minefield is only triggered by ships. So, the Doom is entirely unaffected by that because it's not a minefield and just spawns mines when the system is used.
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Kanil

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #56 on: March 27, 2018, 06:42:59 PM »

Mines being an infinite source of random projectiles that just spawn out of thin air next to your ships... really doesn't sound fun/compelling at all. I guess it probably works out in-game, otherwise you wouldn't add it.

Any thoughts on having the in-battle nebula things affect them in some way? Seems like an obvious place to hide mines, but perhaps nebula spawns are too random for it to be meaningful.
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Alex

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #57 on: March 27, 2018, 07:34:03 PM »

Mines being an infinite source of random projectiles that just spawn out of thin air next to your ships... really doesn't sound fun/compelling at all. I guess it probably works out in-game, otherwise you wouldn't add it.

Yeah, I can see how it might not sound appealing if you put it like that :) I think it's something where all the details determine whether it works or not - how far off the mines spawn, how many there are, how quickly they track, how long they take to explode after being triggered, how big the blast radius is, how much damage they do, how visible they are, etc.

From playing through a number of test battles, I'm very happy with where they're at. They add some tension and fun moments - skirting by a mine that's about to explode, shooting one down with PD, and so on.

The main effect, though, is that they're an ever-present tactical consideration. A mine isn't a surprise to react to - rather, mines are something you have to factor into just about every typical combat decision you make. Is it safe to vent? Can I hold fire? Should I push forward to take out a vulnerable enemy ship? Does an ally need help? Can I strafe this way to avoid incoming fire, or are mines in the way? And if there are, will my PD handle them?

It puts a new twist on everything in combat, and that's where I think it gets its mileage as far as being a fun mechanic.


Any thoughts on having the in-battle nebula things affect them in some way? Seems like an obvious place to hide mines, but perhaps nebula spawns are too random for it to be meaningful.

As you say, in-combat nebulas are too random. It could potentially factor in somehow, in a minor way, but it doesn't sound like something to base the core mechanics on.
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Voyager I

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #58 on: March 27, 2018, 08:26:20 PM »


Hard disagree! I think that sort of stuff works infinitely better when it's conveyed directly by the in-game thing rather than a UI element on top of thing.


This reminded me of something I meant to ask about ages ago - a ship's flux level is one of the most important pieces of information we can have about it, so how come there's no graphical effect correlating to flux level until the ship overloads entirely?  It doesn't have to be anything dramatic - just something to let me know at-a-glance generally how close the ship is to overloading the same way that you can immediately tell where a ship has taken armor damage.
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Alex

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Re: Minefields
« Reply #59 on: March 27, 2018, 09:21:41 PM »

I think that would be great, but it's tough to come up with the specific visuals that actually work well. For a mine, an exaggerated visual like the trigger-flash is fine, since that's what the mine is all about.

As much the flux level of a ship is important, it's far from the *only* important piece of information. Effects generally have to be exaggerated to work well, right. So an effect that's a visualization of an ongoing state of the ship really risks overwhelming both the ship sprite and other important bits of information. And unlike armor, which is positional, no such luck with flux.

There's also that the exact flux level is quite important; 80% flux and 95% flux are very different. The nice thing about the flux/hull bars is they are precise, and tend to be relatively small compared to the ship and don't cover it up, so it's an acceptable way to present it.

Something to represent a ship being very close to overload - with nothing at all for lower flux levels - would be more practical, but that couldn't replace the flux bar. Neither could a more detailed effect, really, flux information needs to be precise. And it's still not clear just how that might look.

So, basically: generally see your point, but it's tough, not getting it quite right would be detrimental, and you'd need the flux bar to go with it anyway. Still, I could see adding a "flux is super high" warning visual at some point.
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