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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: 'Engage as formation' mode for carriers  (Read 4619 times)

Alex

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Re: 'Engage as formation' mode for carriers
« Reply #15 on: September 20, 2018, 09:55:45 AM »

How tight are the tolerances on this system?

Like, hopefully modders aren't expected to spend hours tweaking wing offsets to make sure the different ordnance arrives at exactly the right time (and the player mixing fighter wings from different mods would likely muck it up completely). Will it work properly with the Wing Commander 1 fighter speed boost and/or Strike Commander 1 missile speed boost?

Wing commander etc doesn't mess it up, since they're going to maintain the same spacing regardless of what the top speed is.

If a skill, say, doubled the projectile/missile speed of fighters, that would probably cause problems. Or, say, if a skill doubled the speed of fighters, that'd cause more isolated problems such as interceptor attempts to screen coming in too early. But heavy fighters would be alright even under those conditions, since the duration of the decoy flares increases their margin for error.

Anything short of that should be alright.

As far as picking the right values for modded wings, I can't imagine it'd be too bad. Vanilla gives reasonable starting points, and, really, testing a wing paired with Broadswords and making sure it arrives at a decent timing relative to the decoy flare deployment (i.e. a few seconds after it) should be fine. Basically, I don't think you need to tune various combinations, just tuning the value based on how it interacts with *any* other fighter should put it in the right place. I.E. you could tune a bomber by timing its strike to arrive at the same time the torpedoes from Daggers do, and it'd automatically work with Broadswords, interceptors, and so on.

Longbows in particular are tuned to hit a little before other stuff but they're a bit of a special case, and in any event, they don't *have* to hit before the torpedoes to be effective.
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ArkAngel

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Re: 'Engage as formation' mode for carriers
« Reply #16 on: September 20, 2018, 01:16:07 PM »

I may have missed if it was said somewhere, But to clarify, is the new fighter behavior constant, during engage at will, or was it created as a second mode like in the suggestion?
I ask, because I can’t help but think their may be times where I just want my fighters to chase down a target and not worry about keeping formation, especially if it’s a frigate.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: 'Engage as formation' mode for carriers
« Reply #17 on: September 20, 2018, 02:24:03 PM »

Are these interactions only for fighters deployed from one carrier, or can wings from other carriers join in if they are also set on attack?
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Alex

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Re: 'Engage as formation' mode for carriers
« Reply #18 on: September 20, 2018, 03:21:32 PM »

I may have missed if it was said somewhere, But to clarify, is the new fighter behavior constant, during engage at will, or was it created as a second mode like in the suggestion?
I ask, because I can’t help but think their may be times where I just want my fighters to chase down a target and not worry about keeping formation, especially if it’s a frigate.

It's constant. However, in some cases they may decide not to wait to get in formation (i.e. if their fellow fighters aren't catching up, or if the target is retreating).

Are these interactions only for fighters deployed from one carrier, or can wings from other carriers join in if they are also set on attack?

From one carrier only. It wouldn't work well with multiple carriers - they may decide to pull back and engage independently, and  you also wouldn't want having one wing of Warthogs in the area slowing everybody down.
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Deshara

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Re: 'Engage as formation' mode for carriers
« Reply #19 on: September 20, 2018, 03:27:21 PM »

I may have missed if it was said somewhere, But to clarify, is the new fighter behavior constant, during engage at will, or was it created as a second mode like in the suggestion?
I ask, because I can’t help but think their may be times where I just want my fighters to chase down a target and not worry about keeping formation, especially if it’s a frigate.

It's constant. However, in some cases they may decide not to wait to get in formation (i.e. if their fellow fighters aren't catching up, or if the target is retreating).

Are these interactions only for fighters deployed from one carrier, or can wings from other carriers join in if they are also set on attack?

From one carrier only. It wouldn't work well with multiple carriers - they may decide to pull back and engage independently, and  you also wouldn't want having one wing of Warthogs in the area slowing everybody down.

escort command combines fighters from carriers in the escort & escortee groups? Since they're ordered to stick next to eachother, it lines up their refit distance
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Cik

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Re: 'Engage as formation' mode for carriers
« Reply #20 on: September 21, 2018, 11:16:17 PM »

I may have missed if it was said somewhere, But to clarify, is the new fighter behavior constant, during engage at will, or was it created as a second mode like in the suggestion?
I ask, because I can’t help but think their may be times where I just want my fighters to chase down a target and not worry about keeping formation, especially if it’s a frigate.

It's constant. However, in some cases they may decide not to wait to get in formation (i.e. if their fellow fighters aren't catching up, or if the target is retreating).

Are these interactions only for fighters deployed from one carrier, or can wings from other carriers join in if they are also set on attack?

From one carrier only. It wouldn't work well with multiple carriers - they may decide to pull back and engage independently, and  you also wouldn't want having one wing of Warthogs in the area slowing everybody down.

could use a multi-carrier attack as an option. a single "push point" at which the fighters group up and ingress together.

assign the carriers to the point, the fighters group there and then attack. if the player makes stupid choices and it fouls the AI up a little bit it would still be worth it for the ability to do mass attacks which is really the bread and butter of air power (space power?) anyway.

but yeah, it's legit great looking and will probably improve tactical efficacy even in it's current form. you're approaching actual fighter tactics (that is to say, attack with some deliberation and don't all just trickle in and get wasted) and that's pretty neat.
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