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[Lucky33]

Also I'd like to suggest to move the whole Tsushima thing to the "Discussions".

[Morbo513]

The question was about fast ships going around a defending fleet. Do you see the fleet of the fast ships in the back of defending fleet or did you not?

Irrelevant and proves nothing. Yes, faster fleets can maneuver around slower fleets. That does nothing to support your assertions that 1: Logistics ships would be in a vulnerable/uncovered position relative to their fleet's combat ships, or 2: that those faster ships could successfuly cut-off or isolate those logistics ships, and in doing so have enough time to accomplish anything before those combat ships could respond.
Further, it does nothing to address the fact that in the time it takes for the faster, attacking fleet to close, the defending/slower fleet can easily reorient its self to face the incoming threat, once again putting those combat ships between the attackers and the defenders' logistics ships.

I fail to see how players could be told "This weaker but faster enemy force has magically outmaneuvered your own; your logistics ships are isolated and under attack" in a way that's either satisfactory and/or allows for any agency on the player's part.

[bobucles]

Your position is nowhere near being constructive. I did provide rationale and no, it is nothing that you have quoted. In view of forum policy which prohibits me from repaying your ad hominem in kind I see no room to debate unless you fix the situation by yourself.

Irony is a hell of a drug. 
Sorry Lucky. I looked through your arguments and could not find any meaningful mechanics in it. I can't argue against "do it" and "it just works" because it's all heated opinions. There's no meat to discuss. Mods were wrong to state that this thread is bickering, if anything it's an understatement. 

You can't just look through a history textbook and say "yeah, look at that. I want THAT in my game" because game design doesn't work that way. The history book doesn't define how your game gets played. Players interact with abilities. They weigh bonuses and penalties of doing one thing, and weigh them against the bonuses and penalties of doing something else.  Players respond to those dilemmas with different decisions. Sometimes those decisions line up with the history books. Sometimes they don't.

I'm sure that across the dozens and dozens of replies there are bits and pieces of an ambush mechanic that add together into a complete picture (for better or worse). But as it currently stands, that picture is a complete mess. Step back for a bit, take a deep breath, and copy/paste them all together into the absolutely definitive and irrefutable "Ambush mechanic: How to win at cavalry battles in space". Pay special attention to the mechanics! That's how players decide if ambushing is good or not. It determines if it's a fun new thing to try, or if it's a boring/annoying chore. Maybe the pieces work on their own, but the complete picture is awful. That can happen too.

To get the ball rolling because I know I'm going to get completely dismissed otherwise, this is what such an argument may look like:

An ambush allows a force of smaller, faster ships to bring superior forces to bear against lumbering big ships. The current deployment point system does the opposite. Bigger fleets allow more ships to be fielded, and larger ships grant a fleet a larger bonus against the enemy fleet. The trouble concerns how fleets are compared against each other. The total deployment points of both fleets are compared, and whoever has the absolutely larger fleet commands more ships on the battle space.
Solving this problem is easy. Delete the total DP comparison, and replace some kind of speed comparison. Perhaps total burn level? It makes sense that a fleet composed of many small fast ships has a higher level of tactical maneuvers at its disposal, and thus it has superior command of the battle space. The mechanic rewards these fast fleets by granting them more Deployment Points on the field. The larger, slower ships have less command of the battlefield, so they get lower deployment points as a result.

Will this play out the way we want? Maybe not. Most capital ships have burn levels of 7 or 8, while most frigates have burn levels around 9 or 10. The fast ships only have a small absolute numerical advantage over the big ships, a fleet of pure burn 9 ships only has a 30% advantage over an equal number of burn 7 ships. The mechanic would mostly favor having the maximum number of ships, since 30 ships is way better than 10 ships, but wouldn't necessarily favor fleets with a naturally high speed.

[Sidestrafe2462]

Further, it does nothing to address the fact that in the time it takes for the faster, attacking fleet to close, the defending/slower fleet can easily reorient its self to face the incoming threat, once again putting those combat ships between the attackers and the defenders' logistics ships.

Geometry!

[Lucky33]

The question was about fast ships going around a defending fleet. Do you see the fleet of the fast ships in the back of defending fleet or did you not?

Irrelevant and proves nothing. Yes, faster fleets can maneuver around slower fleets. That does nothing to support your assertions that 1: Logistics ships would be in a vulnerable/uncovered position relative to their fleet's combat ships, or 2: that those faster ships could successfuly cut-off or isolate those logistics ships, and in doing so have enough time to accomplish anything before those combat ships could respond.
Further, it does nothing to address the fact that in the time it takes for the faster, attacking fleet to close, the defending/slower fleet can easily reorient its self to face the incoming threat, once again putting those combat ships between the attackers and the defenders' logistics ships.

I fail to see how players could be told "This weaker but faster enemy force has magically outmaneuvered your own; your logistics ships are isolated and under attack" in a way that's either satisfactory and/or allows for any agency on the player's part.

To remind you the history of the question. Inability of the fast ships to go around the slow ones was presented to me as a major argument. Before it was disproved it seemed pretty relevant and you didnt say a word against it.

But at least you dont attempt to deny reality. Good.

If you look at how ships in the bubble are moving you will notice that they always look alongside the course while their trajectory being a wavy line so what all ships shuffle their positions with time.

That means the possibility of any logistics ships to found themselves in a position closest to the border of the bubble.

And this is where the fast ships are supposed to attack.

Since they actually can go around the defending fleet, they also fully capable of picking exactly that location.

While defender can do nothing about that because all its ships are stuck on the single course. Ordering one group of ships to change it means detaching them from the main fleet.

And that's impossible. Sad also.

[Morbo513]

If you look at how ships in the bubble are moving you will notice that they always look alongside the course while their trajectory being a wavy line so what all ships shuffle their positions with time.

That means the possibility of any logistics ships to found themselves in a position closest to the border of the bubble.

And this is where the fast ships are supposed to attack.

And by what reason are the other ships within the bubble so far away that they can't simply consolidate once an approaching threat has been detected? If we're using the logic of the fleet as represented by the fleet bubble, why would it then necessarily be all the logistics ships separated from all the main combat ships that the attackers encounter first?

Since they actually can go around the defending fleet, they also fully capable of picking exactly that location.

While defender can do nothing about that because all its ships are stuck on the single course. Ordering one group of ships to change it means detaching them from the main fleet.

And that's impossible. Sad also.

Ships can travel in any direction regardless of orientation since there's no drag or air resistance to slow them down (except in nebulas, arguably) - heading in the direction of movement is only necessary for acceleration and course changes. Ships can move towards one another, further shortening the distance between any ship(s) even close to being isolated, and "the rest of the fleet" as if they weren't already contiguous.
 The fleet bubbles evidently leave enough room for two fleets travelling in opposite directions to stop or slow down to combat speeds before overshooting one another. Changing the disposition of a fleet's ships towards an incoming force is accomplished within the space/time between the fleets "meeting" (ie getting so close they're forced to take action; committing to the battle or disengaging) and the initiation of combat.

Once both fleets have met, there's nothing stopping the reserve/non-combat ships from simply falling back behind their combat ships once the attackers are committed to a given direction of approach.

Being able to detach (an) element(s) of your fleet is something I've wanted in the game for a long while, and this is where the "cut-off/regroup" battle type would make the most sense - but it'd only be able to be initiated when a fleet is already separated, and the composition of that detachment would be decided by the player/NPC. Otherwise, there's no reasonable way to justify a weaker force successfuly dislodging any given ship or group thereof from the rest of its fleet, without engaging in direct combat.

[Lucky33]

No they cant simply do anything but their shuffle thing. Reason being Travel Drive and its non-existant turning capability noticably only on the astronomical scale. Since all Travel Drives of the fleet are working in the synchro (what makes Tugs possible) there is no distinction between individual ships. They are all similary bad or good.

As far as I'm aware, player is not supposed to directly command several fleets in any foreseeable future.

[Morbo513]

No they cant simply do anything but their shuffle thing. Reason being Travel Drive and its non-existant turning capability noticably only on the astronomical scale. Since all Travel Drives of the fleet are working in the synchro (what makes Tugs possible) there is no distinction between individual ships. They are all similary bad or good.

I think you're right on that as far as the game explains it; even so, what's to stop them "shuffling" towards one another as an enemy fleet approaches? What's to stop them consolidating once they return to combat speed prior to the initiation of combat? How, exactly, does a group of frigates prevent this from happening, and in doing so isolate a group of ships from the main force, to the degree that they're separated by a distance it takes several in-game hours for them to regroup? How is it that a specific classification of ship are the ones isolated, as opposed to any others - despite similar levels of mobility and that those combat ships would be deployed and maneuvered in an effort to specifically to protect those ships and maintain overall cohesion?

[Sidestrafe2462]

The question was about fast ships going around a defending fleet. Do you see the fleet of the fast ships in the back of defending fleet or did you not?

Irrelevant and proves nothing. Yes, faster fleets can maneuver around slower fleets. That does nothing to support your assertions that 1: Logistics ships would be in a vulnerable/uncovered position relative to their fleet's combat ships, or 2: that those faster ships could successfuly cut-off or isolate those logistics ships, and in doing so have enough time to accomplish anything before those combat ships could respond.
Further, it does nothing to address the fact that in the time it takes for the faster, attacking fleet to close, the defending/slower fleet can easily reorient its self to face the incoming threat, once again putting those combat ships between the attackers and the defenders' logistics ships.

I fail to see how players could be told "This weaker but faster enemy force has magically outmaneuvered your own; your logistics ships are isolated and under attack" in a way that's either satisfactory and/or allows for any agency on the player's part.

To remind you the history of the question. Inability of the fast ships to go around the slow ones was presented to me as a major argument. Before it was disproved it seemed pretty relevant and you didnt say a word against it.

But at least you dont attempt to deny reality. Good.

If you look at how ships in the bubble are moving you will notice that they always look alongside the course while their trajectory being a wavy line so what all ships shuffle their positions with time.

That means the possibility of any logistics ships to found themselves in a position closest to the border of the bubble.

And this is where the fast ships are supposed to attack.

Since they actually can go around the defending fleet, they also fully capable of picking exactly that location.

While defender can do nothing about that because all its ships are stuck on the single course. Ordering one group of ships to change it means detaching them from the main fleet.

And that's impossible. Sad also.

You misunderstand my argument.

you CANT make an attack run AND go around the fleet. The fleet is not separated in any way, even under drive since you seem to have dropped the individual drive bubble *** they are now in one fleet, burning in concert. You say turning occurs on the interstellar scale, which makes sense. Thing is, any ambushers can also be detected on the same scale. In between the fact that large fleets will have some pretty nifty sensor power and that in order to strike past the warships in the drive bubble the frigate fleet has to be large and under sustained/E burn, there's more than enough time to consolidate.

(tbh individual drive is still possible, it could be that tugs simply dock themselves to the slower ships and add their drives to those ship's burn speed)

There's also nothing stopping the combat ships from slowing down a little and thus shuffling towards the back. They don't need to fight their own velocity as they aren't maneuvering with a "stationary" object as a point of reference. With velocity relative to a chasing fleet, one could say the enemy fleet is closing in at burn level 2 or 3. All it would take to shuffle would be to slow the warships down a burn level for a couple of seconds, letting the logistics ships speed ahead while keeping the fleet in one piece, then resuming full speed and stabilizing. Once combat was entered the logistics ships could just speed off while the warships in the back fight. IE pursuit but the big fleet is running
 

[Sidestrafe2462]

The question was about fast ships going around a defending fleet. Do you see the fleet of the fast ships in the back of defending fleet or did you not?

Irrelevant and proves nothing. Yes, faster fleets can maneuver around slower fleets. That does nothing to support your assertions that 1: Logistics ships would be in a vulnerable/uncovered position relative to their fleet's combat ships, or 2: that those faster ships could successfuly cut-off or isolate those logistics ships, and in doing so have enough time to accomplish anything before those combat ships could respond.
Further, it does nothing to address the fact that in the time it takes for the faster, attacking fleet to close, the defending/slower fleet can easily reorient its self to face the incoming threat, once again putting those combat ships between the attackers and the defenders' logistics ships.

I fail to see how players could be told "This weaker but faster enemy force has magically outmaneuvered your own; your logistics ships are isolated and under attack" in a way that's either satisfactory and/or allows for any agency on the player's part.

To remind you the history of the question. Inability of the fast ships to go around the slow ones was presented to me as a major argument. Before it was disproved it seemed pretty relevant and you didnt say a word against it.

But at least you dont attempt to deny reality. Good.

If you look at how ships in the bubble are moving you will notice that they always look alongside the course while their trajectory being a wavy line so what all ships shuffle their positions with time.

That means the possibility of any logistics ships to found themselves in a position closest to the border of the bubble.

And this is where the fast ships are supposed to attack.

Since they actually can go around the defending fleet, they also fully capable of picking exactly that location.

While defender can do nothing about that because all its ships are stuck on the single course. Ordering one group of ships to change it means detaching them from the main fleet.

And that's impossible. Sad also.

You misunderstand my argument.

you CANT make an attack run AND go around the fleet. The fleet is not separated in any way, even under drive since you seem to have dropped the individual drive bubble *** they are now in one fleet, burning in concert. You say turning occurs on the interstellar scale, which makes sense. Thing is, any ambushers can also be detected on the same scale. In between the fact that large fleets will have some pretty nifty sensor power and that in order to strike past the warships in the drive bubble the frigate fleet has to be large and under sustained/E burn, there's more than enough time to consolidate.

(tbh individual drive is still possible, it could be that tugs simply dock themselves to the slower ships and add their drives to those ship's burn speed)

There's also nothing stopping the combat ships from slowing down a little and thus shuffling towards the back. They don't need to fight their own velocity as they aren't maneuvering with a "stationary" object as a point of reference. With velocity relative to a chasing fleet, one could say the enemy fleet is closing in at burn level 2 or 3. All it would take to shuffle would be to slow the warships down a burn level for a couple of seconds, letting the logistics ships speed ahead while keeping the fleet in one piece, then resuming full speed and stabilizing. Once combat was entered the logistics ships could just speed off while the warships in the back fight. IE pursuit but the big fleet is running

You seem to be confusing strategic maneuvering with creating an open attack vector. You have strategically maneuvered yourself behind the fleet, sure. You have not created a gap in the escort pattern, as if you made an attack run right then, it wouldn't be a stretch for a cap ship to move the 5 kilometers back while you are burning in, let alone the destroyers and cruisers. You have a 1-2 point burn advantage. Strategic mobility isn't a factor in space combat unless you have strategic level weapons (IE some sort of interstellar cruise missile or very long ranged railguns).

[Cyber Von Cyberus]

Honestly this is getting nowhere. Lucky, you keep on bickering and trying to explain how this "ambush" would even happen in the first place and keep on being overly defensive on a useless topic, because let's assume the ambush happens.
Alright, so for bounties it's useless since they don't have any logistic ships, patrols ? Good you got tiny bit of fuel and supplies from destroying what little cargo ships they have but nothing valuable and next time they catch you they'll kick your teeth in since their actual combat force is untouched. The only fleets that this mechanic would be good against is trading convoys, but those are already lightly defended so it's simply serves as a method to exploit trading convoys risk free...
As for the gameplay, it's a glorified pursuit but without destroyers and above.
And if the AI is capable of doing it to the player then frigates become nothing more than a logistic vessel that the players shoves in his fleet with efficiency overhaul out of obligation just to make sure he doesn't loose all of his cargo ships.
Your whole suggestion was flawed to begin with as many people pointed out and instead of trying to improve it you kept on defending it.
Unless you rethink this whole idea I see no point in arguing with you seeing how bloody stubborn you are.

[Lucky33]

No they cant simply do anything but their shuffle thing. Reason being Travel Drive and its non-existant turning capability noticably only on the astronomical scale. Since all Travel Drives of the fleet are working in the synchro (what makes Tugs possible) there is no distinction between individual ships. They are all similary bad or good.

I think you're right on that as far as the game explains it; even so, what's to stop them "shuffling" towards one another as an enemy fleet approaches? What's to stop them consolidating once they return to combat speed prior to the initiation of combat? How, exactly, does a group of frigates prevent this from happening, and in doing so isolate a group of ships from the main force, to the degree that they're separated by a distance it takes several in-game hours for them to regroup? How is it that a specific classification of ship are the ones isolated, as opposed to any others - despite similar levels of mobility and that those combat ships would be deployed and maneuvered in an effort to specifically to protect those ships and maintain overall cohesion?

Because its just random. Maybe its how course correction works for the Travel Drive. The fact is that you have no direct control over that veering about. So why bother?

As far as I understand "bubble physics", their contact creates a shock similar to asteroid impact. Both fleets are slowed down and effect is more noticable for the larger ones. After that you get that pre-battle dialogue and game decides that can happen next. Smaller and faster fleets can disengage while larger and slower cant. This mean that prior positioning advantage can be exploited further.

I never suggested anything about several hours time scale. I had in mind only time needed to cross the battle map. That supposed to be the "timer" I was talking about.

The question was about fast ships going around a defending fleet. Do you see the fleet of the fast ships in the back of defending fleet or did you not?

Irrelevant and proves nothing. Yes, faster fleets can maneuver around slower fleets. That does nothing to support your assertions that 1: Logistics ships would be in a vulnerable/uncovered position relative to their fleet's combat ships, or 2: that those faster ships could successfuly cut-off or isolate those logistics ships, and in doing so have enough time to accomplish anything before those combat ships could respond.
Further, it does nothing to address the fact that in the time it takes for the faster, attacking fleet to close, the defending/slower fleet can easily reorient its self to face the incoming threat, once again putting those combat ships between the attackers and the defenders' logistics ships.

I fail to see how players could be told "This weaker but faster enemy force has magically outmaneuvered your own; your logistics ships are isolated and under attack" in a way that's either satisfactory and/or allows for any agency on the player's part.

To remind you the history of the question. Inability of the fast ships to go around the slow ones was presented to me as a major argument. Before it was disproved it seemed pretty relevant and you didnt say a word against it.

But at least you dont attempt to deny reality. Good.

If you look at how ships in the bubble are moving you will notice that they always look alongside the course while their trajectory being a wavy line so what all ships shuffle their positions with time.

That means the possibility of any logistics ships to found themselves in a position closest to the border of the bubble.

And this is where the fast ships are supposed to attack.

Since they actually can go around the defending fleet, they also fully capable of picking exactly that location.

While defender can do nothing about that because all its ships are stuck on the single course. Ordering one group of ships to change it means detaching them from the main fleet.

And that's impossible. Sad also.

You misunderstand my argument.

you CANT make an attack run AND go around the fleet. The fleet is not separated in any way, even under drive since you seem to have dropped the individual drive bubble *** they are now in one fleet, burning in concert. You say turning occurs on the interstellar scale, which makes sense. Thing is, any ambushers can also be detected on the same scale. In between the fact that large fleets will have some pretty nifty sensor power and that in order to strike past the warships in the drive bubble the frigate fleet has to be large and under sustained/E burn, there's more than enough time to consolidate.

(tbh individual drive is still possible, it could be that tugs simply dock themselves to the slower ships and add their drives to those ship's burn speed)

There's also nothing stopping the combat ships from slowing down a little and thus shuffling towards the back. They don't need to fight their own velocity as they aren't maneuvering with a "stationary" object as a point of reference. With velocity relative to a chasing fleet, one could say the enemy fleet is closing in at burn level 2 or 3. All it would take to shuffle would be to slow the warships down a burn level for a couple of seconds, letting the logistics ships speed ahead while keeping the fleet in one piece, then resuming full speed and stabilizing. Once combat was entered the logistics ships could just speed off while the warships in the back fight. IE pursuit but the big fleet is running
 

When contact happened all further maneuvers are defined by the agility of the ships. Frigates do have the unique mobility advantage which allows them to deploy from the flanks in the particular type of battle. This is why they still have the upper hand even after fleet bubbles have merged (or whatever they do).

Honestly this is getting nowhere. Lucky, you keep on bickering and trying to explain how this "ambush" would even happen in the first place and keep on being overly defensive on a useless topic, because let's assume the ambush happens.
Alright, so for bounties it's useless since they don't have any logistic ships, patrols ? Good you got tiny bit of fuel and supplies from destroying what little cargo ships they have but nothing valuable and next time they catch you they'll kick your teeth in since their actual combat force is untouched. The only fleets that this mechanic would be good against is trading convoys, but those are already lightly defended so it's simply serves as a method to exploit trading convoys risk free...
As for the gameplay, it's a glorified pursuit but without destroyers and above.
And if the AI is capable of doing it to the player then frigates become nothing more than a logistic vessel that the players shoves in his fleet with efficiency overhaul out of obligation just to make sure he doesn't loose all of his cargo ships.
Your whole suggestion was flawed to begin with as many people pointed out and instead of trying to improve it you kept on defending it.
Unless you rethink this whole idea I see no point in arguing with you seeing how bloody stubborn you are.

Thats your personal opinion to what you are entitled to but do not force it on me. You either want to participate in the dialogue or you dont. Please, make a choice.

[Sidestrafe2462]

When contact happened all further maneuvers are defined by the agility of the ships. Frigates do have the unique mobility advantage which allows them to deploy from the flanks in the particular type of battle. This is why they still have the upper hand even after fleet bubbles have merged (or whatever they do).

That's with the defending fleet running away full bore however. In pursuit mode, the defenders make no attempt to engage or interdict against a superior fleet and are easily flanked by forerunning frigates. That is the best way to use frigates in a fleet action. When frigates go against a superior fleet, the fleet's most logical option is to attempt to interdict and close, negating any flanking advantage the frigates might have had.

Frigates are great support vessels in situations where they have a fleet to back them up, since the main is the main threat which the defenders have to focus on. In an ambush, they don't, and the defending fleet is free to maneuver as they wish.

[Lucky33]

Yes, exactly, frigates are faster than anything even in a full bore pursuit. Any attempts to do something what is not a max speed retreat will help frigates even more for the reason that more complex maneuver requires more coordination and creates more delay and messing things up in general.

Go into tactical mode. Form your fleet with transports in a forward position, multiple battleships in the back.

Example 1. Command Full Retreat.

Example 2. Try to bring battleships in the position to screen the tranports.

First is much simpler and faster to execute.

Example 3. Trade battleships for frigates and repeat example 2. Feel the difference.

[Sidestrafe2462]

Yes, exactly, frigates are faster than anything even in a full bore pursuit. Any attempts to do something what is not a max speed retreat will help frigates even more for the reason that more complex maneuver requires more coordination and creates more delay and messing things up in general.

Go into tactical mode. Form your fleet with transports in a forward position, multiple battleships in the back.

Example 1. Command Full Retreat.

Example 2. Try to bring battleships in the position to screen the tranports.

First is much simpler and faster to execute.

Example 3. Trade battleships for frigates and repeat example 2. Feel the difference.

Simpler. Doesnt mean better. There are escort buttons. Select every ship except one, tell them to escort a single ship. Tell that ship to run like hell.

Retreat them all once they get near the end.

3 orders, hard to mess that up. Chain of command and easy communications makes it hard to mess up orders. In any case, what if i decide retreating isn't necessary? "all ships, move to area j11 and defend it." One order, and suddenly every ship, including caps, is ready to fend off frigates.

You've conceded that the caps will be part of these battles. Since they are, there's no need to run. Stand and fight, cowards!