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

Author Topic: Squadrons  (Read 1311 times)

Morbo513

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Squadrons
« on: January 21, 2020, 06:25:10 AM »

The single biggest killer of my ships in battles is loss of fleet cohesion. Individual ships can easily become isolated and overwhelmed, while escort orders can result in the escort ships either putting themselves in too much danger, or not contributing to their escort target's survivability at all.

What could help resolve this is Squadrons - these would be set up in the campaign layer. Once in battle, ships that are part of a squadron will stick together, attempting to maintain a given distance between one another. They'd attack the same target wherever possible, while any orders given (except retreat) would be given to the whole squadron by default. They would decide to withdraw simultaneously when appropriate, instead of the escorts often putting themselves between the enemy and target ships, which is usually much more dangerous than necessary. Full assault would not be mutually exclusive with the squadron acting as such, in the same way escort orders are thrown out the window.
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Morbo513

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Re: Squadrons
« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2020, 10:26:04 AM »

Bump. TL;DR is, let us put ships into groups that will try to stay together and concentrate their fire, but otherwise behave the same. These could be set through the control groups you can already create.
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pairedeciseaux

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Re: Squadrons
« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2020, 12:16:28 PM »

Would be interesting. Though those squadrons/groups should IMO be set using the deployment UI (currently it only allows player to choose ships for this initial deployment and for reinforcement).

By the way, another solution to...

Individual ships can easily become isolated and overwhelmed

...is: set defence point(s) using the battle map. Ships then stay close to the defence point(s).
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Morbo513

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Re: Squadrons
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2020, 02:15:11 PM »

Would be interesting. Though those squadrons/groups should IMO be set using the deployment UI (currently it only allows player to choose ships for this initial deployment and for reinforcement).

By the way, another solution to...

Individual ships can easily become isolated and overwhelmed

...is: set defence point(s) using the battle map. Ships then stay close to the defence point(s).
I get what you mean, but this demonstrates why this'd be valuable - Rally points anchor ships to a point on the map rather than to one another, while escort generally limits the escorts' capacity to contribute to attacking a given target.
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Thaago

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Re: Squadrons
« Reply #4 on: May 29, 2020, 03:23:44 PM »

IIRC Alex was thinking about implementing a "rally" command that can be applied to ships, in addition to "escort". I don't know if that panned out, but it came up a while back.
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pairedeciseaux

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Re: Squadrons
« Reply #5 on: May 29, 2020, 04:27:49 PM »

I get what you mean, but this demonstrates why this'd be valuable - Rally points anchor ships to a point on the map rather than to one another, while escort generally limits the escorts' capacity to contribute to attacking a given target.

Yep, 100% with you on this.  :)  I was simply pointing to the obvious and efficient existing mechanic.

Squadrons/groups would (could ?) help battles be both dynamic (less "stand here and wait") and cohesive (less "every ships does its things alone with minimal coordination"). So more "let's chase this target together", encirclement manuver, and so on.

Also, from a technical standpoint, it could lower the AI CPU cost - by running part of the search&destroy at the group level instead of the ship level. Similar to how (I guess) fighters are managed.

Though all of this is certainly easier to write as a few sentences than to code & test.  ;)

IIRC Alex was thinking about implementing a "rally" command that can be applied to ships, in addition to "escort". I don't know if that panned out, but it came up a while back.

Looking forward to read this in future release notes or tweets, if it ever comes.
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ubuntufreakdragon

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Re: Squadrons
« Reply #6 on: May 29, 2020, 05:11:58 PM »

how about having a primary and a secondary assignment for ships to tasks.
e.g. Carrier:
primary: escort x
secondary: fighter strike y
will stick to x while the fighter kill y.

Also it would be nice to give roles to ships on campaign layer, these will affect the AI behaviour.
Carrier: keep distance to everything
Hit&Run: go melee and retreat again, for frigates/phase ships.
Support: stay far while firing missiles and long range beams, ignoring ammo usage.
Combatant:get to 75% of your range fire and use missiles only if the situations looks like it's a smart idea, retreat behind allies if hardflux>50% and move in to protect an ally with more hardflux.
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Jotisan

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Re: Squadrons
« Reply #7 on: May 29, 2020, 05:34:04 PM »

Good idea, it could be a skill and with different levels of efficiency, if the player wanted this type of behavior in his fleet. There is something new, a perk (or perks) that change the behavior of the fleet in combat, instead of upgrades in attack, speed, etc ...
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Squadrons
« Reply #8 on: May 29, 2020, 11:13:30 PM »

The single biggest killer of my ships in battles is loss of fleet cohesion. Individual ships can easily become isolated and overwhelmed, while escort orders can result in the escort ships either putting themselves in too much danger, or not contributing to their escort target's survivability at all.

What could help resolve this is Squadrons - these would be set up in the campaign layer. Once in battle, ships that are part of a squadron will stick together, attempting to maintain a given distance between one another. They'd attack the same target wherever possible, while any orders given (except retreat) would be given to the whole squadron by default. They would decide to withdraw simultaneously when appropriate, instead of the escorts often putting themselves between the enemy and target ships, which is usually much more dangerous than necessary. Full assault would not be mutually exclusive with the squadron acting as such, in the same way escort orders are thrown out the window.

Yes please!
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