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)

Pages: [1] 2

Author Topic: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor  (Read 3584 times)

Draba

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 732
    • View Profile
Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« on: January 13, 2022, 03:48:55 PM »

This version I've been trying to mix up my fleets, and include more cheap frigates I didn't use much recently.
Got some notes related to that.


Support doctrine
Really like the concept, giving a way to boost ships that didn't get officers.
My nitpicks about the implementation:
  • The main point: you can't just have your officered cruisers/capitals with a nice boost to your various destroyers/frigates. If support doctrine isn't used on most of your fleet it's really bad, a more fitting name for it would be swarm doctrine
  • To get full use of it you have to give up officers and a 3rd s-mod for every ship. The DP reduction+free skills are nice, but considering how strong officers are it's already a hard sell.
  • Lots of situational picks on the way: 2 carrier skills you might not want and 3 tied to officers(2 boosts+wolfpack) that aren't that good with support doctrine. CM also needs officers, but plopping 3-4 in kites already maxes the boost. Means that if you do not want carriers just reaching it already can have duds, and getting both Best of the Best and Support Doctrine includes tons of waste.

I'd suggest making support doctrine discount scale based on the total DP of unofficered ships in the fleet, so it's a good choice for more fleet compositions.
Or just remove it from the top level and make it weaker if necessary, its opportunity cost of no officers in high impact ships is already big even without the skill tax.


Wolfpack
My problem with it is similar to support doctrine.
I'd like to include more Lashers, Centurions, Brawlers but they are pretty squishy and an officer for a 4-5 DP ship is just not that good.
Wolfpack bonus also being tied to officers pushes eco options out for the high DP, high impact ships that are pretty good at staying alive(and doing damage) anyway.
Would open up more options and make the cheap frigates more attractive if the bonus didn't need officers (reduce the bonus damage if needed).


Frigate armor
Same as the above 2.
The higher DP frigates are generally faster and have 0.6 shields (only Tempest is 0.8, but it's FAST).
Armor in this version feels strong, but it has a very high skill/hullmod tax before it really shines. You can't feasibly get the skills from officers on cheap frigates, and armor at the frigate level (~300-500 for these ships) really isn't that effective anyway. With a lower profile you get hit less but also have less cells and much lower hull behind it. IMO a 100-200 boost for these ships would be sensible: it's still a frigate and gets smashed by most HE weapons, but probably still holds for another hit or 2.
When the centurion uses damper field well it can be pretty tanky, but for me Omens/Scarabs get blown up way less often. Monitor does the tanking thing a step above all others anyway.



TL;DR tried to use fleets with less capitals/cruisers and more cheap destroyers/frigates for support, officer and skill system both gently nudges me away from that
« Last Edit: January 13, 2022, 04:57:36 PM by Draba »
Logged

tseikk1

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 69
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2022, 04:50:49 PM »

It would be cool if wolfpack tactics worked more similarly to the carrier skills, as in you could get a small effect without officers and a larger one with officers.
Logged

DaShiv

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 95
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2022, 05:13:01 PM »

Support doctrine
Lots of situational picks on the way: 2 carrier skills you might not want and 3 tied to officers(2 boosts+wolfpack) that aren't that good with support doctrine. CM also needs officers, but plopping 3-4 in kites already maxes the boost. Means that if you do not want carriers just reaching it already can have duds, and getting both Best of the Best and Support Doctrine includes tons of waste.

I agree that there's a lack of synergy between officered skills in the Leadership tree being required for non-officered Support Doctrine. If we want to encourage players to use Support Doctrine for cheaper small ships so they can reserve their officers for more important ships, perhaps Coordinated Maneuvers could be changed to "All ships with officers and unofficered ships with Support Doctrine, including flagship" so that it'd still be useful to take as a prerequisite for Support Doctrine.

I would suggest that this does not apply to the damage from Wolfpack Tactics, since that would scale very dangerously with potentially huge numbers of unofficered frigates.

Wolfpack
My problem with it is similar to support doctrine.
I'd like to include more Lashers, Centurions, Brawlers but they are pretty squishy and an officer for a 4-5 DP ship is just not that good.
Wolfpack bonus also being tied to officers pushes eco options out for the high DP, high impact ships that are pretty good at staying alive(and doing damage) anyway.
Would open up more options and make the cheap frigates more attractive if the bonus didn't need officers (reduce the bonus damage if needed).

I'd imagine that the design intent behind the officer requirement is to prevent the damage bonus from Wolfpack Tactics from scaling too much, since frigates are so easy to mass and deploy.  IMO it's currently pretty fair - it's compensation for "wasting" your officers on smaller, lower-impact ships, not a reward simply for using smaller ships at all.

That said, I wouldn't mind if non-officered frigates/destroyers with Support Doctrine and Wolfpack received the PPT bonus (but not the damage bonus) so they can better keep up with larger officered ships.
Logged

Draba

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 732
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #3 on: January 13, 2022, 08:29:10 PM »

I'd imagine that the design intent behind the officer requirement is to prevent the damage bonus from Wolfpack Tactics from scaling too much, since frigates are so easy to mass and deploy.  IMO it's currently pretty fair - it's compensation for "wasting" your officers on smaller, lower-impact ships, not a reward simply for using smaller ships at all.

That said, I wouldn't mind if non-officered frigates/destroyers with Support Doctrine and Wolfpack received the PPT bonus (but not the damage bonus) so they can better keep up with larger officered ships.
Keep in mind that right now wolfpack gives a bigger relative boost for giving up less power, so if that's the intent implementation could be improved.
If you move officers from 4x20 DP worth of ships to 4x8 DP worth of frigates you lose officer bonus on 48 DP, and gain wolfpack on 32.
Same thing with 4 DP frigates means you lose officer bonus on 64 DP, and gain wolfpack on 16.

If we accept DP as a good indicator of combat potential wolfpack can already cover almost an entire fleet with 165 DP worth of Hyperions.
Scarab/tempest clocks in at 88, so even 30x4 DP ships wouldn't be much stronger at 120 (probably weaker since Scarab/Tempest bonus comes on top of officers, you can't get 30 of them).
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2022, 09:40:54 PM »

Its the other way around for coordinated maneuvers and wolfpack tactics: they are 100% in step and synergistic with support doctrine.

The reason is that support doctrine isn't a "use small ships without officers" skill, nor is it a "don't use officers" skill: it is a skill that gives a boost for using more ships than there are officers, no matter the type. In practice what this means is that the skill gives incentives for using more than 9/11 ships while staying being under 240 DP, IE there is a return on investment for the portion of 240 DP not covered by officers. This is best accomplished by having at least some officers in small ships: exactly what coordinated maneuvers requires, and exactly what wolfpack tactics gives bonuses to.

What the player spends their "extra" DP on is entirely up to them. It could be a pack of more frigates which will be running at +40% speed, 100% CR and slower tickdown, etc etc. It could be a pack of carriers (with +40% speed whose fighters are at +10% damage/speed/defense and their refits times reduced). Or it could even be some heavy cruisers who are benefitting from the +50% turn rate and hull damage reduction.

In terms of "...If support doctrine isn't used on most of your fleet it's really bad...": I would not agree with the word 'most'. Certainly it requires some of the fleet to be non-officered, but it doesn't actually need that much to be a strong skill. Say the officers are covering 180DP of ships (an average of 20DP for every officer and the player, so quite a reasonable number even using a pair of capitals and not trying to optimize for wolfpack/coordinated maneuvers/support doctrine). That leaves 60 DP of ships that get a decent level 3 officer, but they are also reduced by 12 DP. That gives the fleet another 15DP worth of ship (because it too gets reduces to 12) which is itself decently officered. Depending on exactly what the player chooses to do with the ships changes the exact math on the benefit, but say for an average of destroyer size this makes the skill give the equivalent of 7 extra mid level officers on top of an entire extra ship being able to fly in the fleet!
Logged

Draba

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 732
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2022, 04:05:07 AM »

The reason is that support doctrine isn't a "use small ships without officers" skill, nor is it a "don't use officers" skill: it is a skill that gives a boost for using more ships than there are officers, no matter the type. In practice what this means is that the skill gives incentives for using more than 9/11 ships while staying being under 240 DP, IE there is a return on investment for the portion of 240 DP not covered by officers. This is best accomplished by having at least some officers in small ships: exactly what coordinated maneuvers requires, and exactly what wolfpack tactics gives bonuses to.
Think I see where you are coming from, a "how much DP I want to sidegrade" dimension could be interesting.

In terms of "...If support doctrine isn't used on most of your fleet it's really bad...": I would not agree with the word 'most'. Certainly it requires some of the fleet to be non-officered, but it doesn't actually need that much to be a strong skill. Say the officers are covering 180DP of ships (an average of 20DP for every officer and the player, so quite a reasonable number even using a pair of capitals and not trying to optimize for wolfpack/coordinated maneuvers/support doctrine). That leaves 60 DP of ships that get a decent level 3 officer, but they are also reduced by 12 DP. That gives the fleet another 15DP worth of ship (because it too gets reduces to 12) which is itself decently officered. Depending on exactly what the player chooses to do with the ships changes the exact math on the benefit, but say for an average of destroyer size this makes the skill give the equivalent of 7 extra mid level officers on top of an entire extra ship being able to fly in the fleet!
This is the point I really don't agree with.
In your example you give up a 3rd hullmod for 240DP, and give up custom lvl 5-6 officers (or even fixed 7s) for another 60.
In return you get some weak, fixed officers for 75 DP and get 15 extra DP.
Your initial deployment in lots of hard battles also goes down from 200 to 160. You actually lose DP for contesting objectives, and get full penalties/only partial benefit when not holding at least 80 DP worth of them.

IMO the skill is terrible if you are trying to mix it up like in your example, giving up both best of the best and officered DP is just too much.

What the player spends their "extra" DP on is entirely up to them. It could be a pack of more frigates which will be running at +40% speed, 100% CR and slower tickdown, etc etc. It could be a pack of carriers (with +40% speed whose fighters are at +10% damage/speed/defense and their refits times reduced). Or it could even be some heavy cruisers who are benefitting from the +50% turn rate and hull damage reduction.
The stats do sound nice, but maxed CM and at least 85% CR for all ships is the baseline for practically every fleet IMO.
At best +10% speed and +15% CR over other ships BEFORE officer bonuses is closer to the actual effect.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2022, 06:52:44 AM by Draba »
Logged

Hiruma Kai

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 879
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #6 on: January 14, 2022, 09:56:48 AM »

Out of curiosity, is this thread discussing maximum theoretical fleet strength after a grinding endgame Ordos, or is this about usage on the way there?

The idea behind Support Doctrine is to enable a different playstyle.  As pointed out by the OP you can cover 240 DP worth of ship in officers without much effort.  But what happens when we start from the assumption the player is running 25 Combat ships and 5 logistics ships as the style?  I mean, we can say you shouldn't do that, because of officers.  But does Support doctrine boost such a fleet to making it sufficiently viable for end game play?  Having a really wide frigate/destroyer swarm is certainly a different experience than an officer limited capital/cruiser/frigate setup.

On the other hand, I would expect Support Doctrine to be terrible on an 8 ship only fleet, because in some sense it's a highly specialized skill, while Best of the Best is the generic, useful in most fleets choice.

Since we're discussing a wide fleet with something well over 10 combat ships (since you have more ships than officers/player), and likely pushing more like 20-25, Best of the Best's third s-mod is not free.  You're talking about 60-75 story points just on the ships, and likely another 10-20 on officers, plus another 5 on personal skills.  85-100 story points is a non-trivial amount of grinding, and a fair bit of time where it's not 240 DP worth of an extra s-mod.  Peak power is likely higher, but I wouldn't say it can be assumed or that it's the default.  Do most players grind an additional 40-50 story points past level 15?  And is that the balance point we're discussing (having used of order 100 story points), or the power balance on the way to having earned that many story points,at which point not all 240 DP has triple s-mods during the grind up.

The other half of Best of the Best gets you 200 DP off to start, but getting to 240 DP takes exactly the same amount of effort as for a fleet without.  Since it doesn't stack with capturables, but counts as if you had a minimum of +40 DP (assuming a 400 DP setting).  If we're discussing absolute peak fleet power, which requires deployments of 240 DP, Best of the Best doesn't really matter too much for that.  Assuming you've got fast frigates, capturing 80 DP of satellites each fight is pretty trivial at the beginning of every fight (2 Hyperions or Afflictors can grab at least one of the far one's on an even quad spread no problem).

As for comparing the differences between officered and unofficered ships.  It is probably a comparison between a level 5 officer with an elite skill versus level 3 officer and +25% more ship.  I'd argue +25% more ship is worth at least 2 officer levels.  Field modulation is -15% damage (17% more shield tanking) and Target Analysis is +10-20% damage.  +25% more ship nominally should mean you can absorb 25% more damage and deal 25% more damage from that DP investment from a fleet perspective.  It can theoretically be a larger multiplier than that since the AI starts having problems when in 2 vs 1 situations.  If you effectively have a bunch of 1 on 1s, but there's a 1 on 2 at the very end of the line, that can have a snowball effect on close fights, at least it does in PVP tournaments.  Almost all fleets in those types of situations go wide.  Number of ships on the field matters to the AI.

Edit: Actually, it can be more than +25% more ship, as Lasher's drop from 4 DP to 3 DP, for example (+33%).  Enforcers drop from 9 to 7 (+28.5%).

While I agree, at peak power, Best of the Best and staying within your officers limits is probably stronger, that isn't a 20-25 combat ship fleet.  I think support doctrine isn't that far behind for the fleets which it is designed to enable.  It is certainly far cheaper in terms of player time because of the s-mod costs associated with Best of the Best.  At level 5, the first point at which you could take it, assuming you're just salvaging ships as fast as you can, to get as wide a fleet as you can, it should be a much, much larger boost than Best of the Best.  Especially with only 16 story points in hand.  If you have ships you don't plan on keeping long term, Best of the Best does nothing for those ships, or else it significantly increases your long term grinding goals as you'll need to replace 3 story points for each ship you've discarded.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2022, 10:00:39 AM by Hiruma Kai »
Logged

Draba

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 732
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #7 on: January 14, 2022, 11:16:54 AM »

The idea behind Support Doctrine is to enable a different playstyle.  As pointed out by the OP you can cover 240 DP worth of ship in officers without much effort.  But what happens when we start from the assumption the player is running 25 Combat ships and 5 logistics ships as the style?  I mean, we can say you shouldn't do that, because of officers.  But does Support doctrine boost such a fleet to making it sufficiently viable for end game play?  Having a really wide frigate/destroyer swarm is certainly a different experience than an officer limited capital/cruiser/frigate setup.
Yep, that's the other direction. Support can be pretty good, if the bonus applies to a high portion of your ships.
My main problem isn't that it's bad for cheap spam, it's that there is no good boost for the chaff in a bit more organic fleet compositions (a few big officered ships doing the heavy lifting, cheap destroyers/frigates providing support).
As mentioned, if you want to include ~10 Lashers/Wolves they'll suck because they only get the fleetwides. At least they did very little beyond getting the way and dying too often for me in combined fleets.

Since we're discussing a wide fleet with something well over 10 combat ships (since you have more ships than officers/player), and likely pushing more like 20-25, Best of the Best's third s-mod is not free.  You're talking about 60-75 story points just on the ships, and likely another 10-20 on officers, plus another 5 on personal skills.  85-100 story points is a non-trivial amount of grinding, and a fair bit of time where it's not 240 DP worth of an extra s-mod.  Peak power is likely higher, but I wouldn't say it can be assumed or that it's the default.  Do most players grind an additional 40-50 story points past level 15?  And is that the balance point we're discussing (having used of order 100 story points), or the power balance on the way to having earned that many story points,at which point not all 240 DP has triple s-mods during the grind up.
You need 60-75 SP for 3 hullmods IF you are doing cheap spam.
I just started out with mostly industry and got dibs on some ships I like, mostly Enforcers, Manticores, Eradicators and Dominators + a Mora.
First 100-150 DP for the bigger ships in the fleet really doesn't take that many story points, even less if you get your hands on some capital you like.
SP considerations are really hard to pin down, I'm not particularly stingy but still never running low in the early game (also not iron man though).

As for comparing the differences between officered and unofficered ships.  It is probably a comparison between a level 5 officer with an elite skill versus level 3 officer and +25% more ship.  I'd argue +25% more ship is worth at least 2 officer levels.  Field modulation is -15% damage (17% more shield tanking) and Target Analysis is +10-20% damage.
Having the numbers does help the AI a lot, but I'm not sure about that part. Something like gunnery implants+ballistic mastery and replacing damage control with flux regulation is also a massive boost for AI.
Not having the range bonuses also makes the bunching up problems from +25-33% ship worse.
Really situational, and hard to find good examples since tournaments are generally symmetrical, campaign fights not so much.

The other half of Best of the Best gets you 200 DP off to start, but getting to 240 DP takes exactly the same amount of effort as for a fleet without.
Yep, the point was only that you start with less and need the objectives to actually get the full 60 worth of support in the example.
SO is the 1 thing in the game I hate and had enough Afflictor/high tech action to last me for a few lifetimes, I just settle for fleets of 200 and don't bother with the objectives.
Logged

Draba

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 732
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2022, 02:31:22 PM »

Thinking a bit more about it yep, current support doctrine does make a pretty drastically different fleet composition a good option.
Scratch that part, just wish there was an easily accessible "lite" version that gives a hand to officerless small ships in a bigger fleet.
Logged

jojo67373

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 1
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2022, 05:39:12 AM »

Quote
Wolfpack bonus also being tied to officers pushes eco options out for the high DP, high impact ships that are pretty good at staying alive(and doing damage) anyway.

My headcanon for Wolfpack is Scarab pack with aggre officers (Helmsmanship + Combat Endurance + System Expertise + Gunnery Implant).
Commo with Coordinated Maneuver you got insane fleetwise top speed and mobility.
High mobo Scarabs almost never dies and you got the full benefit of Wolfpack skill.
Logged

MrTwister

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 62
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2022, 07:14:00 AM »

I think support doctrine is already perfectly implemented. You can only have 11 ships officered anyway (not counting mercs), so how come is it not good to get perks for the rest 65% of your fleet?

I'm perfectly happy with the way it is.
Also taking Supports Doctrine is not an opportunity cost to 3 S-mods, you can get both quite easily (just need 6 lower-level perks).

In my current playthrough I've taken both officer skills and both top tier leadership skills and quite happy with these.
Logged

Draba

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 732
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2022, 01:15:39 PM »

I think support doctrine is already perfectly implemented. You can only have 11 ships officered anyway (not counting mercs), so how come is it not good to get perks for the rest 65% of your fleet?
Yep, that was already mentioned.
Only 35% of the fleet covered by officers would be a really bad idea and support doctrine makes it a decentish option, that's nice.

Also taking Supports Doctrine is not an opportunity cost to 3 S-mods, you can get both quite easily (just need 6 lower-level perks).

In my current playthrough I've taken both officer skills and both top tier leadership skills and quite happy with these.
Also covered: first time around it competes with Best of the Best, 2nd time with the 3 skills needed to go from 5 to 8 in leadership.
Note that with both officer skills you pay 2 skill points to boost the coverage of your fleet and the effect it has, then pay another skill point to throw it away by giving those boosted officers much lower impact ships.
You also reduce the relative gain from support doctrine since it works on less DP.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #12 on: January 16, 2022, 04:38:40 PM »

I don't think I'd take both Best of the Best and Support Doctrine in the same playthrough. Best of the Best is expensive on a fleet with many ships like Support Doctrine wants, so its probably not applying its bonus to all or even most ships in a 'wide' fleet.

IMO Best of the Best is a modestly strong but expensive (27 story points for a full corp) bonus so best used on already elite, max officered ships. 1 hullmod is about half a skill and most ships already have all that they need with 2 S mods, so its not going to 'make/break' all but the most expensive builds. Most likely its going to be more capacitors on a ship: a welcome bonus but not game changing. Its a good skill though because that bonus stacks on top of all the other bonuses (which the player has already taken) and just pushes the ships to be even better (the best of the best, you might say!).

In terms of skill strength for competing the first capstone pick, it depends on how many ships the player wants to use. Just an officered core of heavier ships: BotB. 40 DP or more of unofficered ships? Support Doctrine. SD's bonuses are so much stronger than a 3rd S mod that it doesn't take that all that many DP of ships for it to outweight BotB imo. It helps that Support Doctrine can be taken at any stage, especially early game when a player has few, low level officers (heck, early game the 3 skills from SD might honestly just be better than the player's officers, and they are free/infinite). BotB, which only takes into effect on the 3rd S mod of ships, is better later in the game when the player has those story points to spend.
Logged

Amoebka

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1318
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2022, 06:41:41 PM »

The problem with claiming that support doctrine enables wide frigate fleets is that automated ships already do that better. When you want 10 officers in frigates, you don't fill the rest with support doctrine destroyers, you fill it with gamma core remnant frigates. The two skills enable the same playstyle, but one is better and more versatile.

The only real use case for support doctrine is carrier spam strategies, usually with derelict ops on top. You DO indeed have to have your entire fleet be unofficered for support doctrine to become better than automated ships.
Logged

intrinsic_parity

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3071
    • View Profile
Re: Support doctrine, wolfpack and frigate armor
« Reply #14 on: January 16, 2022, 06:50:26 PM »

The DP reduction is the advantage of support doctrine over automated ships. Plus the reckless AI for remnants can be quite a problem sometimes. I still probably prefer automated ships, but it's not a straight upgrade
Logged
Pages: [1] 2