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

Author Topic: Three things about space combat....  (Read 3162 times)

Kreuzberger

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Three things about space combat....
« on: February 06, 2019, 03:16:55 AM »

I think, space combat need a little reforming after all the time the game exists now. For me, two weird combat behavior and one missing option should be adressed:

Waypoints and rubberbanding:

If you set up a waypoint to defend, this does not mean your fleet will stay there. More then often a single ship or half of the fleet, given by the situation, splits up and get pushed away to a far away location by the enemy fleet. And the player can´t do anything about it (maybe spending a lot of command points to guide it back with more waypoints). The player fleet tend to rather move away from the waypoint then to the waypoint and stay there. It does not even try. So, moving your fleet around the battle map becomes a luck thing.
It could be so simple: Give the ship code a range limit away from the waypoint, which makes the ships try to get back, if they went too far from it. Ship officer behavior should define the distance to the waypoint the ship will take.

Ships getting into field of vision of other allied ships:

Seen often enough. Even the smallest ship can nullify a capital ships frontal arms by just moving in front of it. How about coding ship ai to avoid doing that? Like stopping moving in circles around a target, when near the front of another allied ship and staying in position next to it or moving the other way?

Target selection for weapons:

As it is now, a capital ship will shoot a slow firing super weapon at a single talon fighter. This is stupid.
Can we have a target option for space weapons in the refit menue? Where we can trigger tiny, small, medium and large targets for a weapon to shoot at?

Thank you for your attention.

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Blothorn

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Re: Three things about space combat....
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2019, 05:09:42 PM »

There is a tag for weapons that should not be fired at fighters; if you know of specific weapons that presently do fire at fighters that you think should never do so I would suggest them individually.
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Gothars

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Re: Three things about space combat....
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2019, 05:35:12 PM »

Wouldn't you know, all your suggestions are already implemented in the game! That you can't always see their effect has different reasons.

1. Ships have a maximum distance from objectives in which they try to stay. But they are allowed to exceed is if they judge that they are in danger. Think about what would happen if they were not: you could just push a faster ship to the end of its tether range and easily destroy it there. And the enemy could do the same with your ships.

2. Smaller ships try to get out of the way of bigger allies. They don't do that perfectly yet, but if you look at Alex' twitter you'll see that their escort behavior has already been improved for the next patch.

3. You're probably seeing fighters just getting in the way of shots that were intended for bigger targets behind them. Otherwise, what Blothorn said.
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

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Kreuzberger

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Re: Three things about space combat....
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2019, 09:01:31 AM »

Hm hm...

Whatever you said, I experience regulary not so optimal behavior. Especially allied ships piloting ruthlessly in front of other ships, if set all on one target. If I set them to escort at the other hand they tend to stay away from their escorted ship, that they actually not really taking part in combat (as the escorted ship is in front of them).

About that tag...can someone push me into the right direction. I am pretty sure I don´t know where it is. :P
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SapphireSage

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Re: Three things about space combat....
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2019, 11:26:58 PM »

About the weapons hints.

In your Starsector directory go to \starsector-core\data\weapons\weapon_data.csv

It will be easier to read and edit it with a spreadsheet, but a simple text editor still works.

A list of hints can be found at our handy dandy comprehensive wiki at https://starsector.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_data.csv courtesy of TheWetFish.

In particular you would add the "STRIKE" hint to the weapons in question you don't want shooting at fighters with "USE_VS_FRIGATES" if you want it to still shoot at frigates.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2019, 11:39:16 PM by SapphireSage »
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Kreuzberger

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Re: Three things about space combat....
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2019, 04:51:23 AM »

Ah, I see. Thank you.
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Plantissue

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Re: Three things about space combat....
« Reply #6 on: February 08, 2019, 08:44:21 AM »

There is a tag for weapons that should not be fired at fighters; if you know of specific weapons that presently do fire at fighters that you think should never do so I would suggest them individually.
Top of my head, Hellbore Cannon. It shoots out as soon as fighters enter the edge of its range. It really doesn't have a chance of hitting any fighters unless it is point blank, and it's fire rate is too low that you rather save the shot for non-fighters really most of the time.  On the other hand I guess it is hilarious if it ever does hit.

To a lesser extent heavy blaster and guass cannon, except that they may have the speed to hit fighters.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2019, 11:06:31 AM by Plantissue »
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Three things about space combat....
« Reply #7 on: February 08, 2019, 11:17:46 AM »

Most of the Large guns are more than happy to fire at fighters.
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TaLaR

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Re: Three things about space combat....
« Reply #8 on: February 08, 2019, 11:22:28 AM »

Most of the Large guns are more than happy to fire at fighters.

And they hit perfectly fine, assuming there are enough fighters to shoot at (like Astral's worth). Fighters don't really dodge in purposeful manner, they do it mostly by accident. So a large enough cloud of fighters is trivial to hit.
Not having control over this (preferably in combat) is actually annoying. I often DO WANT my plasma cannons to fire at fighters automatically, but end up having to do it manually.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2019, 11:28:01 AM by TaLaR »
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Plantissue

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Re: Three things about space combat....
« Reply #9 on: February 09, 2019, 11:15:31 AM »

It depends. There are fighters which close in and swarm over their target. Some like Thunders have such speed that there is little chance of being hit by a hellbore when being swarmed over unless there is a seriously large amount of fighters or they happen to have an "attack run" into that weapon mount. Others are more like bombers, slow and tend to move in a straight line, and you have a bit more of a chance.

I suppose an solution would be be something that compares the projectile speed and the speed of the fighter and only shoot if the requisite ratio is met in range.
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