Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Megas]

I consider NPCs breaking the fleet cap regularly akin to a fighting game where the AI in a mirror match (say Ryu vs. Ryu) does double damage against you if you trade the same hits or ignore game rules like charging (like Guile vs. Guile).  This is NPCs following different rules solely on metagame reasons and not for worldbuilding or lore reasons.  Similarly, I avoid Easy difficulty because I do not like the idea of having an permanent unfair advantage (free damage reduction) over the AI.

AI blatantly cheating like this is not a good game experience.  It is a turn off and a big strike against the game.

P.S.  Even if I can beat the cheating AI, the experience is still not fun.  If anything, I feel robbed of a fair fight, or at least one where AI could have played by the same rules but did not.

Continuing fighting game example, this does not apply to boss fights where your human martial artist fights a huge four-armed mutant or a flying beam spamming demon as the final boss.  Those are SNK Bosses and clearly are not bound by the same rules.

Translated to Starsector, I would consider something like the human factions like normal playable characters (at least after player builds up), while Remnants are (or should be) the final SNK boss faction.

[Cyan Leader]

The problem with that comparison is that fighters are 1 on 1 games that start both characters in the same condition, a true duel in which both have access to a similar set of tools. In Starsector, however, the engagements are entirely up to the player and it's up to the them make the fights more favorable. That means luring fleets away from each other, having allied fleets join in, dragging in opposing factions and so on. While I agree that certain things should follow the same rules (global combat mechanics), the combat has never meant to be 1:1. Hell, even the 200:300 split on the max battle size hints at this and the fact that the default start is a very weak player against a field full of sharks also implies it.

You also have to consider the fact that AIs in fighters have come a long way and you can develop a nearly unbeatable one if they are coded to read inputs. Starsector doesn't have this luxury and thus needs to find alternative ways to compensate for that, such as larger fleets.

I feel robbed of a fair fight

I do not agree with this sentiment. I would only agree if the game did not provide the tools to beat those fleets, but it does. All the aforementioned campaign manipulation helps to alleviate this difference, and when considering expeditions exclusively, a well armed station is equivalent to dozens of ships. I toyed around with battle limits before and I had a battle with about 70-80 Sindrian ships attacking my station and it didn't lose a single compartment. When attacking, luring fleets away works really well.

Moreover, repeating what I said before, this will most likely be addressed in a future patch in which the player will be able to command multiple fleets. Never mind, I assumed wrongly what the "orders" tab was about. Still a possibility though.

Even if I can beat the cheating AI, the experience is still not fun.

And this is where we ideologically disagree. I take pleasure in defeating stronger opponents while you take pleasure when completely dominating them in equal footing. I'd like to end this post by saying that I do not oppose raising the cap to 40 ships (especially before the next major features patch). If that makes the game more enjoyable to more people without hurting it then I'm all for it. I just hope we can find a good balance between our different points of view.

[nathanebht]

Maybe this idea is too extreme to implement.

Get rid of the re-enforcement pool and let both sides deploy all of their ships on a dynamically sized map. Two long lines of ships going at each other.

At the start let me pick a deployment layout. Small ships in front, medium in the middle and big in the back evenly spaced horizontally. Small ships on the wings, big in the center, medium between. I kinda hate how ships currently deploy.

A stay in formation / free skirmish toggle order would be needed. Also the radar view would probably need improvement due to the larger map size.

Fairly sure my PC could handle much larger battles. I also wouldn't mind the battle playing at slower speeds when too much was happening. You'd probably need to have the game do a performance benchmark on first install to get stats on what that PC would support.

[Megas]

While I agree that certain things should follow the same rules (global combat mechanics), the combat has never meant to be 1:1. Hell, even the 200:300 split on the max battle size hints at this and the fact that the default start is a very weak player against a field full of sharks also implies it.

If the enemy wants a numbers advantage, then they should bring more fleets while obeying fleet limit, not cheat by breaking fleet cap too much.  Only in 0.7 and now 0.9 eras are the AI breaking fleet caps and, thus, cheating by breaking a rule that only applies to player for... reasons.  Pre-0.7 had Fleet Points or Logistics, and fleet size varied.  In 0.8 era, NPCs in unmodded game mostly honored the fleet cap.  One or two over occasionally was not a problem.  I want the AI to (mostly) honor the fleet cap like they did in 0.8.  If that is impossible, then bring back Fleet Points and Logistics.

For the rest, we will simply not agree and see eye-to-eye.  No point discussing that more.

[nomadic_leader]

When you have a simple shooter game or somesuch of a player character vs waves of mindless enemies, you create an expectation of a solipsistic universe where the player will be vastly different from everything he or she encounters.

When you build up an entire game world with a simulated economy, multiple factions starting and ending hostilities, markets effected by smuggling, etc etc, you create the expectation of an immersive universe where things follow consistent laws for everyone. You've created the illusion of a universe going about its business with or without the player.

Having different fleet caps for players vs AI is one example of something that shatters that illusion.

Why bother creating the illusion if you aren't committed to it? A hard cap is a cop out in lieu of a mechanic to limit fleet size  within the established rules of the game-universe: fuel cost, supplies, etc.

I was sad to see logistics be cut in favor of a hard cap. I was also sad when extra crew stopped using up supplies.

[BillyRueben]

I've got zero problem with removing the fleet cap. DP in battles does the job of limiting the effectiveness of a massive fleet. I just don't see the problem of the AI having some advantages over the player. The battlefield can't ever be truly "fair" between a human and an AI, and realism goes out the window when within a year your colony that starts with a few thousand people ends up producing the majority market share of 10+ products.

[nomadic_leader]

The battlefield can't ever be truly "fair" between a human and an AI, and realism goes out the window when within a year your colony that starts with a few thousand people ends up producing the majority market share of 10+ products.

Yea, and that should also be fixed.

If AI and human is so lopsided, it means the AI isn't very good, or the design is putting the AI into situations where it's going to be lopsided. Alex uses the AI not being able to do something as the excuse not to add tonnes of things to the game that it would choke on-- and he's correct!

Letting the AI get fleets that are twice as big in order to be competitive means something is amiss. Maybe the fact that a human pilot can improve all the base characteristics of his piloted ship/weapons to an absurd degree just by applying "skills" using "experience"  he got doing any unrelated task like salvaging is one reason why it can become lopsided toward the player.