Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Author Topic: Autofit Warnings  (Read 3137 times)

TheKart

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 15
    • View Profile
Autofit Warnings
« on: November 02, 2019, 07:27:15 PM »

One thing I've noticed with the influx of new users, is a noticeably higher number of ship fits with nonsensical weapon choices that leave many of their ships performing well below what they could be. While building ship loadouts is a tough skill to learn that takes time to really understand, one way to help alleviate this would be to make using autofit friendlier to newer users.

Essentially, when using autofit have the UI display warnings after selecting an autofit variant that cannot be properly completed with given resources. For example, if using autofit for the Balanced variant of the hammerhead without having access to heavy mortars or Integrated Targeting Unit, 2 warnings would be displayed:

"Caution: Some weapons required for this variant are currently unavailable, and have been substituted with other weapons. This can impact final combat performance severely."

"Caution: Missing the Integrated Targeting Unit hullmod. This ship may perform worse in combat as a result."

In addition, if possible highlight which weapons on the resulting ship have been substituted for others.

I remember in my early days knowing next to nothing about the ship fits autofit gave me, and trusted them blindly without realizing how it could leave my ships in a subpar state. Hopefully this could help newer players keep in mind that they will want to acquire certain weapons in order for their ships to perform the best they can.
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23986
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2019, 07:35:59 PM »

Hmm - wrote that down to look at. My concern would be that when these warnings are false positives (which would certainly happen) - i.e. the produced variant is, while missing some optimal pieces, quite serviceable - that players would still be over-concerned and treat the warning as a "don't use this ship" rather than "it's fine for now". New players will have subpar variants either way, right? Autofitted or otherwise...
Logged

intrinsic_parity

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3071
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2019, 07:36:53 PM »

Some of the default auto-fit load outs are pretty crap, even if you have all the right equipment as well. Maybe there should be an outfitting tutorial.
Logged

TheKart

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 15
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #3 on: November 02, 2019, 07:42:06 PM »

Hmm - wrote that down to look at. My concern would be that when these warnings are false positives (which would certainly happen) - i.e. the produced variant is, while missing some optimal pieces, quite serviceable - that players would still be over-concerned and treat the warning as a "don't use this ship" rather than "it's fine for now". New players will have subpar variants either way, right? Autofitted or otherwise...

True, you'd have to set it up in a way that wouldn't discourage a newer player from using autofit even if a warning is triggered. Mostly just looking for a way for a new player to at least get some level of feedback for their autofit vs trusting it blindly and not realizing why combat is so difficult on the occasion autofit has bad luck producing the goal variants.
Logged

Scorpixel

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 172
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #4 on: November 02, 2019, 09:58:54 PM »

Well unless you're trying to give an overdriven hammerhead to a cautious AI it's hard to go THAT bad with autofits.

While it is true that even with "use better stuff" turned on the game will sometimes still want to put talons/piranhas/broadswords over sparks and daggers, and this may not necessarily be optimal for your situation, it still works well in most cases (when your warships haven't been covered in burst PD and thus have the venting power of a grandma with pneumonia).

After all autofit is here to give good-enough stuff for newcomers to learn the bases before having to fiddle with yet more content. Where would be the fun if the best designs were a click away from the get-go?
And anyways most people will end-up either reading guides or putting the dakka they like until their aberration somehow works (all hail kinetic-emp spam, long may the enemy spin uncontrollably).
« Last Edit: November 02, 2019, 10:18:33 PM by Scorpixel »
Logged

bobucles

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 532
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #5 on: November 03, 2019, 04:21:07 AM »

Giving the player the best designs wouldn't make much sense anyway, since the best things are typically hard to find. If autofit is for novice players, it makes sense for the autofit to use common, easy to find items and hull mods. Even the ITU is pushing things a bit on the high end.

TheKart

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 15
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #6 on: November 03, 2019, 09:39:31 PM »

Giving the player the best designs wouldn't make much sense anyway, since the best things are typically hard to find. If autofit is for novice players, it makes sense for the autofit to use common, easy to find items and hull mods. Even the ITU is pushing things a bit on the high end.

I feel like you may have misunderstood the point here. I'm not suggesting any changes to autofit as it functions, only for it to inform the player if it is forced to make concessions in the design if its missing pieces.

Otherwise, a new player might not have the knowledge to realize that autofit isn't reliably outfitting their ships like they might expect, and not realize the connection between autofit's loadouts and what struggles they might have in battle.
Logged

kenwth81

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 143
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #7 on: November 04, 2019, 03:04:12 AM »

Giving the player the best designs wouldn't make much sense anyway, since the best things are typically hard to find. If autofit is for novice players, it makes sense for the autofit to use common, easy to find items and hull mods. Even the ITU is pushing things a bit on the high end.

I feel like you may have misunderstood the point here. I'm not suggesting any changes to autofit as it functions, only for it to inform the player if it is forced to make concessions in the design if its missing pieces.

Otherwise, a new player might not have the knowledge to realize that autofit isn't reliably outfitting their ships like they might expect, and not realize the connection between autofit's loadouts and what struggles they might have in battle.

It is excessive hand holding. Newbs probably don't know the difference between using this weapon or that weapon. They probably wouldn't know if autofit is giving them a better ship loadouts. Autofit is the quick and easy fix, where any weapon is better than no weapon.

With randomized weapons you find in markets, you probably need to use less than “Optimized” loadouts to fly and shoot anyway.

Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #8 on: November 04, 2019, 05:11:34 AM »

where any weapon is better than no weapon.
With OP costs, that might not be the case, if the weapon is awful enough.

Back when Thumper had wind up and poor range, I would consider no weapon better than Thumper.

Then, there are carriers who tend to have just enough OP for only fighters, hullmods, and some flux stats.  Drover is the poster-child of all fighters and no weapons.  Astral comes close, due to how expensive high-end bombers are, yet Recall Device works best with them.
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23986
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #9 on: November 04, 2019, 09:06:52 AM »

True, you'd have to set it up in a way that wouldn't discourage a newer player from using autofit even if a warning is triggered. Mostly just looking for a way for a new player to at least get some level of feedback for their autofit vs trusting it blindly and not realizing why combat is so difficult on the occasion autofit has bad luck producing the goal variants.

Yeah, makes sense. But, well, I'm not sure about the best way to go there. To some degree, "trusting autofit blindly" is a desired feature - it helps a new player manage the many demands of the early game, and the autofitted variants are usually good enough. Then, at some point they'll start to figure out how to build a good variant, probably starting with their own ship, and this'll likely make them revisit the autofitted variants...
Logged

intrinsic_parity

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3071
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #10 on: November 04, 2019, 10:57:59 AM »

It's fine that auto-fit does basic loadouts with minimal hull mods and average weapons, but that will also result in players who depend on auto fit never learning what stronger load outs look like. Some people like trying everything to find the strongest loadouts but that's very time consuming (and requires you to find all the good tech) and I think a lot of people just default to doing things similar to what the game suggests with auto fit. Especially now that there are so many other things to do in the game, I think people will spend less and less time optimizing for combat.

What if there was a tutorial to teach players what good and bad loadouts look like. Maybe you work with a ship inspector for the hegemony fleet and he shows you some loadouts and explains how they are bad and improves them (stuff like not having enough dissipation/not having any hard flux/using only inefficient weapons/having only HE or KE damage etc.). Then you get to make a loadout and he grades you or something.


Also there are some default auto-fit load-outs that need improving IMO. The default eagle has 3 heavy mortars and 3 gravitons which is a pretty anemic load-out vs. good shields. The default astral also uses fighters instead of bombers which is criminal. Dedicated carriers also should have expanded deck crew by default like how warships get ITU by default. I only looked at the default ones for the ships in my fleet so there could be other examples of bad auto-fits.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #11 on: November 04, 2019, 11:09:15 AM »

Also there are some default auto-fit load-outs that need improving IMO. The default eagle has 3 heavy mortars and 3 gravitons which is a pretty anemic load-out vs. good shields. The default astral also uses fighters instead of bombers which is criminal. Dedicated carriers also should have expanded deck crew by default like how warships get ITU by default. I only looked at the default ones for the ships in my fleet so there could be other examples of bad auto-fits.
Then there is Legion that wants both Expanded Deck Crew and ITU due to being both (almost) dedicated carrier and a viable warship at the same time.

As for dedicated carriers like Heron and Astral, I tried warship-lite loadouts, with guns similar to loadouts from pre-0.8a releases and Talons, and they underperform compared to loadouts with high-end fighters or bombers, and few or no weapons.  (Without ITU, along with other bad stats, why bother with weapons aside from token anti-missile?)
« Last Edit: November 04, 2019, 11:14:03 AM by Megas »
Logged

bobucles

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 532
    • View Profile
Re: Autofit Warnings
« Reply #12 on: November 04, 2019, 11:32:31 AM »

Quote
It's fine that auto-fit does basic loadouts with minimal hull mods and average weapons, but that will also result in players who depend on auto fit never learning what stronger load outs look like.
Does this ever actually happen? Is it representative of reality at all? The very first thing a player sees in the refit screen is a giant picture of their ship with tons of hard points and options to play with. Every docking port is filled with an assortment of guns and hull mods, and everywhere the player goes they find new equipment to try out. The shinies are directly in front of the player's face, they're advertised everywhere in what world is a user not going to play with them? Hard mode: Assume the player also enjoys games with customizable units.

It's only when players get confused or exhausted that they look around for the autofit button. This can naturally happen early on, when players are learning an entirely new game archetype and are flooded with a ton of information and no context to understand it. That's the part where autofit shines. Once players start learning the ropes, autofit won't help much any more. It kind of can't help the player, there's too many things to consider in ship design to boil it all down into 4 packages.