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Author Topic: Sensors and going dark  (Read 3703 times)

Baqar79

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Sensors and going dark
« on: July 16, 2018, 05:00:16 PM »

Well two things in mind, the first is simpler:

1) I find it hard to figure out exactly how a large a sensor profile 82 units might be if I'm hiding in a ring system for example.  If you don't want to add clutter to the main screen, would you consider making these radius's visible via a toggle; eg click on "Sensor Range" to toggle seeing the actual radius of the sensors, click on "Detection Range" to toggle your current detection radius.

2) The Second idea is more to do with making stealth, aka "Going Dark" and hiding in an asteroid ring/nebula/etc confer advantages on the one doing the hiding.  The idea I had was pretty basic, but was to use your current "Detection Range" to give you a bonus of some sort against the enemy that finds you.

eg, with these examples the better your stealth signature, the higher the bonus:

hiding in Asteroids (don't mind the numbers I pulled out of thin air):
+5% to +20% damage reduction to your hiding fleet for the duration of the battle.

hiding in the ring sytem of a gas giant with a strong magnetic field:
+5% to +20% damage reduction (like the asteroids).
-20% to -5% flux capacity (the idea here is that fighting in a strong magnetic field affects both your fleets energy systems whether you are hiding or not, but you can mitgate this penalty by spending the time optimizing systems as the enemy fleet searches for you).

hiding in a nebula:
-20% to -5% reduction in weapons range.

I'm sure something much better can be done than my idea here, but I would like to see some sort of combat advantages to going stealth and hiding using the terrain (rather than the usual wishful thinking of hoping that an enemy fleet wont spot you).
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2018, 05:32:11 PM »

Another idea, change the combat scenario under certain circumstances. The idea being you are ambushing the enemy since you were hiding. Some ideas might be:
-enemy civilian ships are forcibly deployed (maybe in the middle of the map or with 30 second timer before they can retreat)
-you can disengage instead of going through the retreat scenario (because the enemy isn't prepared to chase you)
-enemy has a CR reduction since they weren't prepared for combat
-enemy has reduced deployment points, or delayed access to deployment points (again since they were unprepared)

I think straight damage buffs are probably a bit too much of an advantage. Flux and weapon range changes could be interesting.

On a semi-related note, I feel like the retreat scenario adds very little to the game and is mostly just annoying or an auto-reload anyway. I would love if it got situationally replaced with stuff like this, or with other more interesting scenarios where one side isn't definitely getting slaughtered.
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Baqar79

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2018, 05:59:30 PM »

Another idea, change the combat scenario under certain circumstances. The idea being you are ambushing the enemy since you were hiding. Some ideas might be:
-enemy civilian ships are forcibly deployed (maybe in the middle of the map or with 30 second timer before they can retreat)
-you can disengage instead of going through the retreat scenario (because the enemy isn't prepared to chase you)
-enemy has a CR reduction since they weren't prepared for combat
-enemy has reduced deployment points, or delayed access to deployment points (again since they were unprepared)

I think straight damage buffs are probably a bit too much of an advantage. Flux and weapon range changes could be interesting.

On a semi-related note, I feel like the retreat scenario adds very little to the game and is mostly just annoying or an auto-reload anyway. I would love if it got situationally replaced with stuff like this, or with other more interesting scenarios where one side isn't definitely getting slaughtered.

I like this idea equally as well, all very nice advantages to hiding away.  Would love to get my revenge on the enemy AI by picking off their supply/fuel ships, then retreating and watching their fleet fall victim to the same supply/fuel devastation that was visited upon me in past games.

Certainly agree with retreat being a bit too weak (hence my other post about paying pirates to get out of a certain death situation), and with the iron-man playthrough's I've been doing recently it's often game over.
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Goumindong

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2018, 08:33:50 PM »

Well two things in mind, the first is simpler:

1) I find it hard to figure out exactly how a large a sensor profile 82 units might be if I'm hiding in a ring system for example.  If you don't want to add clutter to the main screen, would you consider making these radius's visible via a toggle; eg click on "Sensor Range" to toggle seeing the actual radius of the sensors, click on "Detection Range" to toggle your current detection radius.


Detection radius isn't a fixed value so this isn't a good way to look at the situation. You literally cannot draw those radius.

Specifically detection radius = Sensor Profile(detected fleet) + Sensor Range(Detecting fleet)*

When you see other fleets on the map you will see a circle around you. The hard circle is the "floor detection radius" for that fleet when looking for your ship. If you are within it they will know that you are a fleet.  The soft circle is the "questionable detection radius of that fleet" if you are within it they will get an unknown sensor ping. Which they may check out or may not.


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Baqar79

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #4 on: July 16, 2018, 09:10:48 PM »

Detection radius isn't a fixed value so this isn't a good way to look at the situation. You literally cannot draw those radius.

Specifically detection radius = Sensor Profile(detected fleet) + Sensor Range(Detecting fleet)*

If this is the formula:
Detection radius = Sensor Profile(detected fleet) + Sensor Range(Detecting fleet)*

As another option, perhaps mouse over fleet targets, and then draw a detection circle based on that targets current sensor range and your current detection range.  This way you can quickly mouse over any fleets on the screen to get good information about how close to being detected you are.

When you see other fleets on the map you will see a circle around you. The hard circle is the "floor detection radius" for that fleet when looking for your ship. If you are within it they will know that you are a fleet.  The soft circle is the "questionable detection radius of that fleet" if you are within it they will get an unknown sensor ping. Which they may check out or may not.

I'm probably being really dumb, but I don't know quite what you are referring to, the arcs that appear now and then that you see from fleets bouncing their radar of you?
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Goumindong

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #5 on: July 17, 2018, 11:57:13 AM »

The "bouncing radar" you're seeing is their range against your ship.

OK so there are three circles on a fleet. The first one is the fleet radius. Its a hard circle. If you touch that you're interacting with the fleet(if they or you want to)

The second circle is the inner part of a set of radiating circles away from the fleet. This is the hard detection radius. If you're within this then you are are seen as a fleet but may not be identified (if your transponder is not on).

The third circle is the outer part of the radiating circles away from the fleet. This is the soft detection radius. If you're within this then you are seen as an "unknown sensor contact" and the fleet may or may not come to investigate.

If you cannot see a fleet you do not know its sensor radius. Many times when you're in sustained burn and other fleets are not you won't see a circle, your sensor profile is so big their radius is off your screen.

Sometimes you will see a big expanding radiating circle. This happens when a fleet performs a sensor burst. Their sensor radius gets really big for a bit and so their detection radius relative to you does as well. This isn't a result of ships "bouncing their radar off of you" this is their detection radius of you expanding because they performed a sensor burst.
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Baqar79

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2018, 05:39:33 PM »

The "bouncing radar" you're seeing is their range against your ship.

OK so there are three circles on a fleet. The first one is the fleet radius. Its a hard circle. If you touch that you're interacting with the fleet(if they or you want to)

The second circle is the inner part of a set of radiating circles away from the fleet. This is the hard detection radius. If you're within this then you are are seen as a fleet but may not be identified (if your transponder is not on).

The third circle is the outer part of the radiating circles away from the fleet. This is the soft detection radius. If you're within this then you are seen as an "unknown sensor contact" and the fleet may or may not come to investigate.

Have I understood this correctly? is this what you mean?: https://i.imgur.com/t7mLURR.png

If you cannot see a fleet you do not know its sensor radius. Many times when you're in sustained burn and other fleets are not you won't see a circle, your sensor profile is so big their radius is off your screen.

Sometimes you will see a big expanding radiating circle. This happens when a fleet performs a sensor burst. Their sensor radius gets really big for a bit and so their detection radius relative to you does as well. This isn't a result of ships "bouncing their radar off of you" this is their detection radius of you expanding because they performed a sensor burst.

This is making more sense if what I posted above is correct.  The only thing I noticed however is that I can visually identify fleet contacts, but not see their sensor radius (for example where I am now hiding away) until they get closer, so it seems if they're too far away as well their sensor radius wont be visible.
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Alex

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #7 on: July 20, 2018, 10:50:14 AM »

Quick note: the 3 animated "detection range" arcs are all just part of the same visual which indicates the range at which your fleet will be detected at all. It's not a single hard circle to introduce a bit of uncertainty as to the exact detection range, plus it looks nicer than a fixed circle flying around.
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Baqar79

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #8 on: July 20, 2018, 04:57:48 PM »

Quick note: the 3 animated "detection range" arcs are all just part of the same visual which indicates the range at which your fleet will be detected at all. It's not a single hard circle to introduce a bit of uncertainty as to the exact detection range, plus it looks nicer than a fixed circle flying around.

Thank you for taking the time to answer, even though I'm close to fully derailing my own thread :D

It's also pretty clear I made suggestion 1 without really understanding the radar system at all (thanks @Goumindong!).

Is there any way of determining or at least guessing the visual fleet/object identification range?  I've found out recently when hunting out survey objects that could potentially be around stars, that I can use Active Sensor Burst to make out the contents of a normally unidentified contact that is dangerously deep in a stars corona; but seeing as I have to still be pretty close the range seems fairly short even with Active Sensor Burst (or maybe the Corona reduces detection range further?).

Back on topic, is there something you have planned like intrinsic_parity's suggestion or my own suggestion 2 to make hiding a little more tactical?

Edit:
Thanks @Alex also for also clearing up my misunderstanding of the 3 radiating rings. :)
« Last Edit: July 20, 2018, 05:05:50 PM by Baqar79 »
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Alex

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #9 on: July 20, 2018, 05:43:41 PM »

Active Sensor Burst increases your sensor range by 3000 units. Per the tooltip of that (and a few other abilities), the size of one map grid cell (and one radar circle) is 2000 units. Given that your fleet has some base sensor range, and the object being detected has some sensor profile, ASB will generally bring your effective detection range to  around 5000, which is also the sensor range cap. So, about 2.5 grid squares or so. Less if the target is going dark etc.

Back on topic, is there something you have planned like intrinsic_parity's suggestion or my own suggestion 2 to make hiding a little more tactical?

Hmm. It feels to me like either these bonuses are minor enough (and so fairly inconsequential, i.e. why do it?) or major enough that you'd be often looking to gain an edge using them even if it leads to weird gameplay. I.E. it wouldn't be good if, say, you felt like to win a specific fight - or even just take minimal losses - you'd have to lure a fleet back to an asteroid belt and then "ambush" them. Having to do that would get old pretty quick.

Something like a different type of battle being started is potentially more interesting, but perhaps even more prone to being exploited (of course you could try for some safeguards, but if there's anything players are great at, is working around them unless they're completely bullet proof), and working out the details of how those (not the safeguards, the actual engagements) would work is tricky to say the least. Just a lot of edge cases there, i.e. what happens when a fleet is too large to deploy, etc.

So, generally, I'm pretty wary of tying in campaign map location/terrain to direct in-combat advantages.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #10 on: July 20, 2018, 06:35:34 PM »

I can definitely see trying to avoid giving straight buffs to combat because it would make the optimal strategy to ambush, but I thinks long as the buff is situational enough, it could still work. Particularly being able to ambush civilian ships and being able to run away without retreating.

Being able to ambush civilian ships only matters for piracy type gameplay where you want the goods not the fight and the goods are valuable enough to offset the cost of the fight. This is a pretty rare situation in the current game, it would only be relevant vs a big cargo hauling fleets that you could plunder. It would not provide any benefit if the enemy fleet didn't have any valuable cargo which is the case most of the time. You would also need to be able to get away with the cargo so you would have to loot after retreating which is not how the game currently works. This is more an idea to make piracy more viable, but it would probably require a lot more cargo fleets to exist, and for the player to be able to get intel on where they are going to lie in wait. More of a whole new feature than a small addition.

Being able to escape at will would also only apply if you intended to retreat so it doesn't affect most combat. In the current game, if a fleet starts chasing me that I can't kill and that has the same burn as me, I just reload. I did notice that you are adding a distract with cargo option that might fill the same role, but I feel like this would be a nice second option where you avoid losing cargo but maybe instead lose a little CR. Also I'm not sure if all fleets will be distracted by cargo or if there is a certain amount of cargo that needs to be dropped, in short this could be a nice alternative, giving the player more options to escape a bad situation. This could also be achieve by making the sensor changes from terrain much more significant (drastically reducing your profile without reducing you sensor strength too much), which would be cool and allow the player to sneak around in terrain more. I think that would still be balanced since you have to stay in the terrain to get the benefit.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2018, 07:06:37 PM by intrinsic_parity »
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Baqar79

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Re: Sensors and going dark
« Reply #11 on: July 20, 2018, 07:00:39 PM »

Active Sensor Burst increases your sensor range by 3000 units. Per the tooltip of that (and a few other abilities), the size of one map grid cell (and one radar circle) is 2000 units. Given that your fleet has some base sensor range, and the object being detected has some sensor profile, ASB will generally bring your effective detection range to  around 5000, which is also the sensor range cap. So, about 2.5 grid squares or so. Less if the target is going dark etc.

I was meaning the range at which you can identify the composition of a fleet or abandoned star base; ie "Unidentified Contact" becomes a "Research Base" or a fleet of warships, which seems to be quite a bit smaller range than the actual "soft" detection range.  

If you look at that picture above that I posted (even though I was wrong about the rings, thanks for clearing that up), you still can't make out the details of the contact even though you know it's there.  Using the eye to gauge distance by referencing the star (~2000 units by the radar if I'm reading that right), I think it's about 400 units away roughly?  Just wondering if there is a good rule of thumb to determine roughly when an unknown contact will become visible (eg 1/3 of the actual distance it gets detected at).

Hmm. It feels to me like either these bonuses are minor enough (and so fairly inconsequential, i.e. why do it?) or major enough that you'd be often looking to gain an edge using them even if it leads to weird gameplay. I.E. it wouldn't be good if, say, you felt like to win a specific fight - or even just take minimal losses - you'd have to lure a fleet back to an asteroid belt and then "ambush" them. Having to do that would get old pretty quick.

Something like a different type of battle being started is potentially more interesting, but perhaps even more prone to being exploited (of course you could try for some safeguards, but if there's anything players are great at, is working around them unless they're completely bullet proof), and working out the details of how those (not the safeguards, the actual engagements) would work is tricky to say the least. Just a lot of edge cases there, i.e. what happens when a fleet is too large to deploy, etc.

So, generally, I'm pretty wary of tying in campaign map location/terrain to direct in-combat advantages.

What about using it purely as an escape mechanic?

So far if you are hiding away a fleet can still find you fairly easily even after going dark since it's pretty easy to determine the last location you were at before going dark.  At this point I'm probably thinking I should of just emergency burned out of there in the first place.

What if on the other hand the fleet had to locate you even after your fleet circles made contact; ie you could have the same fleet dialogue pop-up give you an option to escape with the chances being based on how dark you were to the enemy looking for you.  

This would tend to favour smaller fleets (or Phase ships) more due to their smaller signature allowing escape more easily, while larger fleets would have a harder time so their chance to escape would be lower.

Basically a successful escape roll would be the same as the hostile fleet never locating you so they continue their scan and eventually resume their normal patrols (of course any movement within range of the patrol even after "winning" an escape can grab the attention of the hostile fleet again).

Edit:
Took far too long putting my post together that intrinsic_parity's came up before I had finished.  Just reading through that post and the ambush piracy idea is fairly interesting as well...something along the lines of attacking the supply ships, and then trying to escape successfully in order to make away with the loot?  Perhaps a way to try and steal cargo from a much larger force without getting into a real battle (if you can successfully escape after that ambush).
« Last Edit: July 20, 2018, 07:21:13 PM by Baqar79 »
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