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Author Topic: Assault order  (Read 2010 times)

Morbo513

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Assault order
« on: January 20, 2020, 03:06:07 PM »

An in-battle order that can be given to individual ships - to behave as if "Full assault" were enabled. There are often situations where it's advantageous for some ships to hold back while others attack, but where having them target a specific ship is detrimental. In the same way as a retreat order, giving the order to one ship will cost 1 CP for the first, any subsequent ones are free unless the game has been unpaused. This also allows you to maintain escort and harrass orders, rally points and captures while upping the aggression of those certain ships.
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Goumindong

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2020, 04:24:16 PM »

The order is "Search and Destroy"
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AxleMC131

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2020, 09:46:10 PM »

The order is "Search and Destroy"

That's not what S&D does, if memory serves me correctly. S&D just makes the ship ignore "fleetwide" orders, and do its own thing until a specific order is given to it.

I think what Morbo is asking for is an order that just makes a ship more aggressive, like Eliminate, but without having to specify a particular target for the ship...

... At which point I have to say: "Have you tried using a more aggressive officer?"
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #3 on: January 21, 2020, 05:45:05 AM »

Officers are limited in quantity and even if they weren't you can't reassign them mid-combat, so that's not exactly a useful response.

I agree that a per-ship version of Full Assault would be very useful. Eliminate isn't great because the combat situations change so quickly that an Eliminate that seemed good 5 seconds can turn into a massive trap, while Full Assault still lets ships switch targets and react to the battle better.
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Morbo513

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #4 on: January 21, 2020, 06:18:41 AM »


I think what Morbo is asking for is an order that just makes a ship more aggressive, like Eliminate, but without having to specify a particular target for the ship...

... At which point I have to say: "Have you tried using a more aggressive officer?"
Precisely this - come to think of it an order for the opposite would be desireable too, both fleetwide and per-ship. There multiple scenarios in which a change of disposition would be prudent; Eliminate, Engage, Harrass and Avoid orders are often unwieldy and can quickly turn your ships suicidal as Daton mentions.

Honestly 70% of the influence I'd like to have on my fleet during battles could be achieved with a pair of sliders in the command screen - One that allows you to change aggression fleet-wide, and the same per-ship.
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Thaago

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #5 on: January 21, 2020, 09:26:24 AM »

Well we have the fleet wide slider, but no per ship other than officers.
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Megas

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #6 on: January 21, 2020, 03:09:21 PM »

Sometimes, Search & Destroy or Full Assault needs to be used twice to set the whole fleet into 'Eliminate' mode.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #7 on: January 21, 2020, 03:25:17 PM »

Honestly 70% of the influence I'd like to have on my fleet during battles could be achieved with a pair of sliders in the command screen - One that allows you to change aggression fleet-wide, and the same per-ship.

It's really not even a slider - it's just 5 notches: the currently existing 5 AI stances. Reckless - Aggressive - Steady - Cautious - Timid
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Plantissue

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2020, 05:44:47 AM »

Is "Full assault" order AI different from an Aggressive officer AI? Or different from an "eliminate" order that they can freely change between? I wonder what is the difference. Is there a difference? What does Full Assault order actually do?
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AxleMC131

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2020, 08:51:39 PM »

Is "Full assault" order AI different from an Aggressive officer AI? Or different from an "eliminate" order that they can freely change between? I wonder what is the difference. Is there a difference? What does Full Assault order actually do?

Full Assault makes your whole fleet just behave more aggressively. I don't know by what scale it does so - like, if you were to compare it to officer personality effects - but AFAIK it's as simple as that. "Make my ships more aggressive."


Officers are limited in quantity and even if they weren't you can't reassign them mid-combat, so that's not exactly a useful response.

Good point, somehow I failed to take that into account. XD
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TaLaR

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #10 on: January 22, 2020, 10:29:59 PM »

Officers are limited in quantity and even if they weren't you can't reassign them mid-combat, so that's not exactly a useful response.

It would be useful for multi-round combat.
Right now we are limited to only 10 useful AI ships in fleet. Rest is logistics, spare player ships and maybe few distraction frigates.
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Plantissue

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #11 on: January 23, 2020, 03:32:23 AM »

Well that's disappointing. I was hoping someone could answer more than the rather obvious observation that it makes the whole fleet behave more aggressively. In my observation it appears to be more aggressive than an aggressive officer, but I was hoping for more of a specific behaviourial programming answer.
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bobucles

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Re: Assault order
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2020, 08:07:34 AM »

The aggression AI definitely looks like a tug of war between "get closer" and "stay away". I don't think there's any clear numbers or thresholds to provide, or if they'd even be useful to the layman. It'd probably be more helpful to show off a side by side comparison between identical fights.