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

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Author Topic: Formations  (Read 4357 times)

DirectionsToL3Please

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Formations
« on: January 11, 2022, 04:18:26 PM »

Are there any mods that let you set them? Is there some special hidden setting in the vanilla game that will let you set them?  I know how to move tactically better than the AI, which is only a problem if, as it appears, there's no way to keep the AI from screwing everything up every time.

Is there a way to set formations and have them stick hard?  This is going to end up being the game-breaker for me, I'm afraid; there's no fun to be had in watching my fleet do the wrong thing time and again and suffer casualties for it.  This isn't about loadouts - the last thread I made, the high post count folks immediately wanted to ignore the topic and make it about how min/maxed my ships were.  I don't need that tutorial again.  I need to know if it's possible to control the game or if it's just Space Lemmings once you hit "deploy".
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Null Ganymede

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Re: Formations
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2022, 04:29:29 PM »

I need to know if it's possible to control the game
Only indirectly. Formations are emergent behavior from your loadouts / enemy loadouts / player orders, in that order.

Edit: the frustration sounds familiar and I remember it well. What helped me grok it was ignoring the fleet combat for a bit and focusing on individual flagships. Once I had some practice optimizing a single ship for combat I eventually realized that "dumb" AI was usually outmatched to the point that even if I took direct control it wouldn't be able to execute orders/kill stuff/survive.

If the ship is faster than its opponents it won't get pinned and die to them. If it has good point defense it won't get flamed out by Salamanders or EMP fighters. If it has more firepower (which is a combination of flux, damage bonuses, ranges, damage types...) it won't lose the flux war and get flux-locked at 90% then overloaded.

Aaaand if it doesn't have those things then Bad Stuff is gonna happen and all you'll be able to do is watch. That's why focusing on flagships initially is (imo) more fun and rewarding.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2022, 04:36:23 PM by Null Ganymede »
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Drazan

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Re: Formations
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2022, 01:31:34 AM »

This is a constant problem, and everyone exept the "old guard" agrees that the AI needs drastic changes. I dont even thing it would be that hard to change their hardcoded behavior.
The reason why older players dont see this as a problem is beacuse they are so used to this game that they have accepted long ago that the ai is like this. They do nott think its a problem, they think it is a part of the game. Those who thought otherwise didn't stick around long enough to beacame older players.
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Grievous69

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Re: Formations
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2022, 01:52:22 AM »

This is a constant problem, and everyone exept the "old guard" agrees that the AI needs drastic changes. I dont even thing it would be that hard to change their hardcoded behavior.
The reason why older players dont see this as a problem is beacuse they are so used to this game that they have accepted long ago that the ai is like this. They do nott think its a problem, they think it is a part of the game. Those who thought otherwise didn't stick around long enough to beacame older players.
Well this is a bit overdramatic. I think it just depends on what your expectations of combat are: Do you see this as an action RPG with AI comrades or an RTS where you micro manage your fleet. Some players will obviously be disappointed since "commands" are not really commands, more like guidelines. And seeing your fleet not doing the thing you want is frustrating, but the AI is not that dumb. It tries its best to survive and play around the player. Formations as suggested here will help in one department, and then make more problems along with it. You'd have to overhaul the whole AI code and turn this into an RTS which will again frustrate a large part of the playerbase because that would be a different game with a different feel.

Us "old guards with high post count" are well aware that AI tends to do dumb ***, but you have a trade off of knowing even without a single command, your fleet will do good. Where in other games with much stricter commands, giving no orders (or very few) would spell total and utter defeat. Again, it's just a matter of preference in combat.

That said there can always be AI improvements and fixes to make it even more reliable, though any attempt to make it more "RTS-like" would be a waste of dev time imo. Apologies if I sound too negative, I understand the concerns and complaints but I'm afraid this just isn't that type of game.

EDIT: Btw I know for a fact that most players don't stick around for many different reasons, certainly it's not because of "dumb AI".
« Last Edit: January 12, 2022, 01:55:54 AM by Grievous69 »
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Please don't take me too seriously.

Drazan

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Re: Formations
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2022, 02:38:17 AM »

Do you see this as an action RPG with AI comrades or an RTS where you micro manage your fleet.
Right now it is none of that. You need to use command, but you have to keep in mind that they are not exactly what you would want them to be.
I do not want it to be an rts, none of us want. I just want to coordinate my fleet a little bit. Maybe add separate more stricker commands.

the AI is not that dumb. It tries its best to survive and play around the player.
It is. It does not. Or more accurately it does when you equip it "properly". "Proper" meaning that exact 2-3 types (sometimes less) of loadaout the ai is competent to use in a given ship. Hence why most of the complains about ai is answered by "huhh your loadout is not optimal". The problem with this is that a ship could be awesome with very different loadouts if it we wre able to make it use different strategies. Right now it is impossible beacuse as you said command are more like guidlines, and we cant expect ships to have drastically different ai for every given loadout.

Formations as suggested here will help in one department, and then make more problems along with it.
Yes. But at least we could only blame ourselfs for those problems. If I order a ship to g and die, and it goes and dies, then it is all right, its my fault. But if I order a ship to defend a point and it starts playing merry-go-around the map chasing a frigate and then dies, then hell yeah im frustrated beacuse i wanted none of that.

The IMPORTANT stuff: It is allright that ships can do thing on their own without orders, awesome game desing. But there should be orders that are followed really strickly so people could try new and interesting tactics.


EDIT: Btw I know for a fact that most players don't stick around for many different reasons, certainly it's not because of "dumb AI".
This is not the first, and sadly probably not the last post complaining about ai, saying that this will make them leave the game. The last time when this much complaining was done was about the new skill system and that got changed pretty fast.
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SCC

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Re: Formations
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2022, 03:00:44 AM »

I wonder if earlier most of the players came for the piloting aspect of Starsector, but now new players care more for the strategic layer.

Kinsume

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Re: Formations
« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2022, 09:27:53 AM »

I wonder if earlier most of the players came for the piloting aspect of Starsector, but now new players care more for the strategic layer.

I got hooked because its basically mount&blade combined with space empires, two of my old time favorite games. Now in M&B I loved controlling my own character while the AI did their thing, but in this game I can't seem to get the hang of it so I'm all strategy and AI piloting.
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TerranEmpire

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Re: Formations
« Reply #7 on: January 12, 2022, 10:16:46 AM »

I think improving the command abilities would be great since as of now they are really underwhelming.
One thing I find missing is the ability to deploy ships in a pre-determined formation.
Currently, if I deploy 3 Onslaughts and 3 Apogees, the result would be something like this:
 O O O A A A
But I would like to be able to deploy them in whatever formation I see fit, like:
       A
 A O O O A
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Null Ganymede

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Re: Formations
« Reply #8 on: January 12, 2022, 05:16:13 PM »

If you read Christopher Columbus's journal he's constantly lying to his crew about distance covered to keep them from throwing him overboard and flipping a 180. If you read closely, you can also see uh friction between admiral Columbus and his three captains.

What if you think of Starsector beginners as overconfident Italian admirals fuming at the insubordination shown by their more experienced (and usually non-suicidal) captains?

It'd be interesting to try and surface some of that AI behavior in a mod. Maybe in the form of backtalk via Combat Chatter? Or straight up desertion if the orders you give are unrealistic - "you want me to eliminate the Doom that just retreated behind a Paragon? **** off, Tri-Tachyon pays better than this!"
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TontonBoo

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Re: Formations
« Reply #9 on: January 12, 2022, 07:29:32 PM »

Quote
players don't stick around for many different reasons, certainly it's not because of "dumb AI"

The AI behavior is what keeps me coming back even after a long break. The day the devs listen to the complaints and do something to make it more subservient like in any other RTS this game will have lost something that made it special. I sure hope it never happens.

Better formations maybe - better loadout smartness for sure. Compliant AI no thank you.
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Voyager I

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Re: Formations
« Reply #10 on: January 12, 2022, 08:54:49 PM »

This is a constant problem, and everyone exept the "old guard" agrees that the AI needs drastic changes. I dont even thing it would be that hard to change their hardcoded behavior.

The short version is that making smarter AI is, in fact, that hard.

The old posters are keenly aware of the AI's shortcomings, but we're also aware that "create an AI with human-like reasoning skills" isn't a realistic solution to them and most of its frustrating behaviors are compromises based on the limits of its decision making (ie, the AI tends to err on the side of caution because erring the other way will get it killed and having the AI lose your ships to unforced errors would be infuriating for the player).

Can you give us examples of specific behaviors that are frustrating you? It would allows us to give more constructive feedback on how to produce the outcomes you're seeking, and in cases where the AI really is behaving inappropriately Alex has made adjustments to its priorities.
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PhroX

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Re: Formations
« Reply #11 on: January 13, 2022, 12:54:10 AM »

I definitely like the general behaviour of Starsector's AI - I would not want it to become full RTS like where they do exactly what you say all the time. That said, there are a few behaviours that do annoy me.

In particular, I often feel that it understimates what groups of allied ships can do - for example, 3 destroyers attacking an isolated cruiser will often be cautious about engaging even when given direct orders to attack, despite being able to overwhelm the target when working together (even if one needs to back off for flux, the other two could press the attack, then one of them rotate out with the first one when it gets fluxxed).

Overuse of missiles on weak targets is another thing. While it's certainly amusing to see 20+ harpoons fired at a lone overloading Lasher, it's not that productive....
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Drazan

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Re: Formations
« Reply #12 on: January 13, 2022, 02:12:21 AM »

Im literally huffling ad puffing Im so mad I've never been so mad in my life.

Everyone in this thead acts like that i want SS to became a full RTS. I literally said the opposite. Neither do i want ai with "human like reasoning skill". I want some hardcoded behavior to change to be a bit more realistic, nothing new just tweak the existing numbers perhaps.

I would be happy with the ai if the commands were actual commands. Thats all I want a bit more controll over my ship. Everything else can stay the same, just give me a command that makes a ship goes from A to B, and wont start chasing frigates on the way.

So please dont exaggerate my statements.
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Null Ganymede

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Re: Formations
« Reply #13 on: January 13, 2022, 05:22:21 AM »

Your AI officers think your commands are dumb and are in open rebellion.

Go ahead, dismiss them, it won't un-wreck your fleet!
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Megas

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Re: Formations
« Reply #14 on: January 13, 2022, 06:01:00 AM »

This is a constant problem, and everyone exept the "old guard" agrees that the AI needs drastic changes. I dont even thing it would be that hard to change their hardcoded behavior.
The reason why older players dont see this as a problem is beacuse they are so used to this game that they have accepted long ago that the ai is like this. They do nott think its a problem, they think it is a part of the game. Those who thought otherwise didn't stick around long enough to beacame older players.
It is more like a problem that will likely not be fixed no matter how many complaints are posted.

I am still annoyed with how cowardly ships are (at least since 0.8a), and how my ships still let the enemy steal objectives they were assigned to defend with their lives under their noses.  Also, ships chasing small fry they have no chance of catching instead of sticking with their orders.

As for formations, I would like to reverse standard formation, with big ships first and little ships at the rear, so that enemy small ships splat when the moment they meet the big ships.  It gets tiring deploying my fleet in multiple waves.  Deploy big ships first, exit menu, bring up menu, deploy small ships last, in most fights.
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