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[Wyvern]

There is, indeed, a large gulf between 'actually unfair' and 'feels unfair'.

And I'm not arguing that the fight itself needs to feel fair, just that the framing of it should - Starsector is not a game designed around the notion that the player is some magical special hero, and mechanics that make it obvious that the AI is running under different rules than the player is are - for me - annoying immersion-breakers.

(Yes, that includes colonies. If it's so easy to set them up... why are you the only one doing so? I'd honestly prefer that suggestion someone made a while back of requiring a sleeper ship to be able to start colonizing at all - obviously, not with the current sleeper-ship mechanics, you'd need to be able to cart it around to where you needed it, and maybe the current-game's sleeper ships are 'bigger' versions and the one(s) the player can find & use to start a colony are smaller... Add in a semi-tutorial mission string that points the player to one to get them started, and off you go.)

[BCS]

But the fights should be unfair in favour of the player. This isn't a PvP game, the opponents don't really "exist" and therefore don't obey the same rules as the player does; or to put it differently they don't play the game at all. Enemy fleets just spawn out of thin space and don't need to pay maintenance, officers, don't have to pay SP for S-mods and don't use up fuel or supplies. If fights were really "fair" then the player would lose most of the fleet with every engagement, just like every equal chess match ends up with both sides losing most of the pieces. Except only the player has to actually put in effort to get their fleet back so that would be incredibly tedious to do.

It's possible to create different fleets that can take on triple Ordos and win with no losses.

Is it? I know you listed a bunch but they all basically boil down to "Safety Overrides and/or Squall". Sure individual ships change but the principle remains the same - a hullmod that basically breaks the game when installed on ships larger than a frigate and a broken oddity of a weapon that generates tons of hard flux at no flux cost to the firing ship and has amazing endurance to boot. Given how many different ways there theoretically are to build fleets/ships in Starsector, narrowing everything down to a single hullmod and a single weapon system is actually incredibly limiting.

[vladokapuh]

i would prefer there to be "initiative" thing, where the stronger force starts with advantage, but the points AND killing ships can give you the upper hand
also rework to reinforcements, where the points are actually limited like command points, and they slowly regenerate, but killing enemy ships speeds it up

it doesnt happen as often vanilla (but still does), where i get advantage and then game turns into meatgrinder at top of map, its boring and makes no sense, at that point they should lose the battle and get the option to run or try to reengage but at disadvantage (maybe CR hit?)

[intrinsic_parity]

I agree with the Dev that the previous state of the game (where you would just bring 15 paragons and get 50% more DP than the enemy to trivialize the fight) was boring and needed to be fixed.

I do feel like a better direction would be to try and change the campaign layer of the game so that bringing tons of large ships is very difficult to achieve or undesirable (via logistics or access to ships, and the new skills and bonus XP already do this to some extent) rather than making those extra ships have no deployment benefit if you bring them along.

I feel like between skill thresholds, bonus XP, and logistics/ship access, it should be possible to make the 'bring 15 paragons to get +50% DP' strategy unviable, while still using the old system of initial DP ratio being decided by the ships in the fleet. Maybe considering both officers and ships is best though.

I think equal deployment points for both sides is a bad idea. It's way too much of an advantage for the smaller fleet, which is frequently the players because of the new skill system.

[Vanshilar]

There is, indeed, a large gulf between 'actually unfair' and 'feels unfair'.

And I'm not arguing that the fight itself needs to feel fair, just that the framing of it should - Starsector is not a game designed around the notion that the player is some magical special hero, and mechanics that make it obvious that the AI is running under different rules than the player is are - for me - annoying immersion-breakers.

It's the opposite. Endgame fights in many games need to "feel unfair" against the player for them to seem epic or be memorable, but in reality are "actually unfair" against the AI. That's why you get stuff like a merry band of adventurers going up against a dragon or a demigod or an orc horde or whatever as the endgame in a lot of games, not you the player going up against a random joe schmo. Those monsters typically not only have much better stats, but also have spells and such that the player doesn't have access to. (Imagine the player getting to play through Diablo II as Baal.)

For Starsector, In terms of regular faction fleets, at least in terms of the random personal bounties that pop up, the biggest ones (level 10 or above, i.e. 285k credits and above) average roughly 11 officers that have around 57 total levels. (Keep in mind that you the player count as a level 15 officer.) So the player fleet is at rough parity with the highest personal bounties for deployment. It's when you get to multiple fleets or Ordos fleets that the player is at a numerical disadvantage, but have a bunch of bonuses to make up for that. Not only is the deployment ratio "capped" (or in this case, minimized) at 40:60 instead of whatever the actual ratio might be, but the player can make up for it and get an even 60:60 ratio by temporarily grabbing objectives at the beginning. So my point is that the deployment system actually favors the player against the hardest fleets, rather than working against the player.

But the fights should be unfair in favour of the player.

Right, and I'm saying they already are (in particular the deployment system), and it doesn't need to be adjusted even more in favor of the player than it already is. The rest of it is due to reducing computation time to only what's important, i.e. simulating the world around the player. You *don't* want the computer to be simulating the equipping, fighting, leveling, etc. process of every kobold and goblin that the player encounters dispatches with hardly a second thought before the player sees them, that would grind the whole game down. That's why enemies appear already "fully developed" so to speak while the player needs to level up, etc., in pretty much every game.

Is it? I know you listed a bunch but they all basically boil down to "Safety Overrides and/or Squall". Sure individual ships change but the principle remains the same - a hullmod that basically breaks the game when installed on ships larger than a frigate and a broken oddity of a weapon that generates tons of hard flux at no flux cost to the firing ship and has amazing endurance to boot. Given how many different ways there theoretically are to build fleets/ships in Starsector, narrowing everything down to a single hullmod and a single weapon system is actually incredibly limiting.

No, it's entirely possible to make fleets that don't use them and still beat multiple Ordos, I just choose to because 1) Safety Overrides doubles flux, flux is related to the ship's damage output, and I focus on maximizing damage output to kill the enemy fleet as quickly as possible, and 2) my fleets tend to favor kinetic weapons, because:

1. Ordos ships have lots of shields but relatively low armor and hull, so you want lots of kinetic weaponry. From Detailed Combat Results, usually the total damage done is around 55% to shields, 15% to armor, and 30% to hull. That much damage is going up against the Ordos ships' very good shield efficiency too (in other words, the raw damage done to shields is actually around double of that).
2. High kinetic damage is a good way to drive up enemy flux and thus nullifying their offense, so that I don't have to worry about them fighting back as much, and Ordos fleets are very offensively-focused.
3. Since I the player am much better than AI at deciding if jumping in to finish off a target is worth the risk, the flagship tends to have more anti-armor/hull while my AI ships have more anti-shield. For example, my flagship Medusa simply has 2 LDMG and 2 Cryoblasters. (Without SO, then it's 2 Light Needlers and 2 Cryoblasters.) My Onslaught XIV's main weaponry is 4 Proximity Charge Launchers, which I use while burn driving into a target, which the AI doesn't really know how to do.

So if my fleet has large missiles, then the most obvious weapon to put in that slot is Squalls. Hurricanes suffer too much from missing and overkill, while Locusts are best for finishing off targets which I'm already focusing on in the flagship. I've generally been using HVD for medium ballistics and Mjolnirs for large ballistics for the same reason. (Gauss does a bit more than Mjolnir to shields, but Mjolnir does far more to armor and hull to make up for it, plus have a higher hit rate.)

But for example, the 5 Conquests can win against double Ordos just fine using Hurricane/Locust/Mjolnir/Gauss/HVD/Harpoon, as attached. In that case the Gryphon's large missile was switched to Locust and I removed the SO on my Medusa, switching out my dual LDMG for dual Light Needlers. It can still win just fine. My Furies tended to use Sabots and Xyphos instead of SO. My understanding of Eradicator fleets is that they're long-range fleets, not based on SO. And whenever I get around to playing with carriers, they won't use SO nor Squalls most likely (unless the best carrier I find for a carrier-heavy fleet is Legion XIV or Astral). I don't think phase ships use SO nor Squalls either. So it has more to do with my personal playstyle than "it has to be done this way".

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[BCS]

Post your fits/skills/officers then because I literally cannot imagine these five Conquests beating a full sized Ordo. Maybe if you cheesed the hell out of AI with the flagship by dragging most of their forces(or at least the Radiant(s)) away, that's the only way I could imagine it working.

[Jackundor]

imo Officers affecting the DP you can bring makes it really punishing to not go heavily into leadership... a while ago there was a thread about combat skills being fundamentally underpowered compared to keadership and tech skills that affect the whole fleet and i feel like this contributes to that problem

[Hiruma Kai]

imo Officers affecting the DP you can bring makes it really punishing to not go heavily into leadership... a while ago there was a thread about combat skills being fundamentally underpowered compared to keadership and tech skills that affect the whole fleet and i feel like this contributes to that problem

Can you give an example where you find the extra officers actually give you more DP at the start and the extra deployment is actually necessary, because that is not my personal experience.  I don't doubt the extra ship skills on AI allies are handy, but in terms of pure deployment, I don't think I notice any difference between most of my builds, heavy leadership or not.

I would argue that as far deployments go, for the majority of the game, you are in fact not punished for not going heavily into leadership.

In the end game, heavily farmed red system Ordos or high end Ordo bounties completely swamp your officers with Alpha cores and you will be at minimum 40% deployment with objectives capturing up to 60%.  Having 10 level 6 officers compared to 5 level 8 officers doesn't matter (plus yourself as level 15).  We're only talking about 36% more officer levels (75/55), where as the enemy fleet can be up to 7*30 = 210, or 381% more.  I suppose the ratios are less if you grab a mercenary or two, or happen to find an actually useful level 7 exploring, but that just helps the no leadership case proportionally more.  The double Tesseract fight lets you deploy your entire 240 DP fleet anyways with 5 level 8 officers.  About the only skill that does affect deployment at that late in the game is Best of the Best, which still requires you to capture two Comm relays or a Comm relay and two others to hit 240 DP.  Given there is typically enough relays on your side of the map to grab 40-60 DP, I personally don't see much of an advantage from BotB's guaranteed 200 DP deployment in most combats.

So for the super late game, I submit you are in fact not punished for not going Leadership.

You are also not punished if your fleet is 160 DP or less, since your entire fleet deploys anyways, so early and perhaps early mid-game there is no difference in deployment.

The only place going deep into leadership can make a difference in deployment is going up against single mid-game NPC faction bounty fleets, maybe in the 250-400k credit range?  Multiple NPC fleets orbiting the same planet, doing a raid on a heavily patrolled world, and so on will rapidly swamp you in enemy officers no matter your leadership investment, so it really does limit it to single enemy bounty fleets. I can solo a number of those NPC faction fleet compositions (when encountered singly, not multiple at the same time) in a combat-specced Odyssey, and actually using a 160 DP fleet just makes it easier.

[Vanshilar]

i would prefer there to be "initiative" thing, where the stronger force starts with advantage, but the points AND killing ships can give you the upper hand

That's actually what it is already. For endgame, Ordos fights, you start with 160 DP or 200 DP, but then grabbing objectives can boost your fleet to 240 DP. The opposing side starts with 240 DP, but as you start killing ships, that DP moves from "being at the front lines" firing at you to "moving in from the spawn point" and therefore out of the action. Eventually I only have roughly 80 DP's worth of enemy ships firing at my Conquest line, when I'm able to bring my whole fleet to bear on that.

That also has implications for Safety Overrides ships, because their weapon range is so short. The SO ships are going to be in the range of more enemy ships, so they get double the flux dissipation, but they're also dealing with incoming fire from say 120 to 160 DP's worth of ships, instead of just 80 DP or so if you're using long range ships. The enemy ships need to be kept separated, since if they bunch up, then SO ships won't be able to go in to do damage and survive. So SO isn't an unmitigated benefit; it has tradeoffs and changes your battle strategy a lot. Basically high risk high reward.

it doesnt happen as often vanilla (but still does), where i get advantage and then game turns into meatgrinder at top of map, its boring and makes no sense, at that point they should lose the battle and get the option to run or try to reengage but at disadvantage (maybe CR hit?)

Yup and in fact that's what you're going for, your ships just mulching through their fleet as you gradually head toward the top of the map.

So it seems like the meta for good battle strategy is to take out a bunch of ships early on (meaning good burst damage such as from missiles) while keeping your ships alive, while you're at a numerical disadvantage at the beginning of the fight. If your fleet can achieve that, then the fight becomes much easier once the enemy fleet is just gradually spawning in to replaces losses, and they're unable to form proper battle lines. Then it's smooth sailing from there.

Post your fits/skills/officers then because I literally cannot imagine these five Conquests beating a full sized Ordo. Maybe if you cheesed the hell out of AI with the flagship by dragging most of their forces(or at least the Radiant(s)) away, that's the only way I could imagine it working.

I posted an example of the fight here:



Sorry about the video quality, my computer is too crappy to run Starsector + screen capture software at the same time, so this is recorded on a phone set on a box on the computer table. My fridge was also running in the background. Anyway, you can see the setup at the beginning, with the actual fight starting at around 3 minutes in. This is the same battle strategy that I've been using to test different Conquest loadouts, and this shows how they usually go.

In this case, my Medusa is using Light Needlers, an Ion Pulser, and a Heavy Needler. In practice, I use it with SO, 2 LDMG, and 2 Cryoblasters, but just running it this way here to show neither SO nor Cryoblasters are necessary (they do speed things up though). The Conquests have level 4 officers; basically the most important skill is Missile Spec which boosts missile damage by around 65%. Obviously they'd be stronger if they were level 6 officers (in which case they'd also have Gunnery Implants and Ordnance Expertise), but again just showing that it's not necessary here. Thus far the strongest Conquest build I've found is 2x Squall, 2x Mjolnir, 2x HVD, 2x Harpoon, but you can see that here, it's Hurricane, Locust, Mjolnir, Gauss, 2x HVD, 2x Harpoon, and it works just fine. The Gryphon would normally have a Squall but it used a Locust for this video.

So you can see that my role in the Medusa is to help finish off already-weakened targets, and that I'm not that great one-on-one. Since I'm in the front, I also distract enemy ships to keep incoming fire on me and away from the Conquests. I made a couple of mistakes and you can see dumb AI behavior about 7 minutes in; both are fairly frequent, but the setup is resilient enough to recover from it.

Interestingly, Gauss does more damage than Mjolnir in this setup (average 35k total damage to Mjolnir's average 28k total damage), because the missiles aren't doing as much anti-shield damage. When dual Squalls are used, Mjolnirs do more damage than Gauss, since more of the shields are already gone so it's more armor/hull that remains. So this is another anecdotal data point as to why it's important to look at weapon loadouts as a whole, because whether weapon A or weapon B is better depends on weapon C, D, E, etc.

[vladokapuh]

i would prefer there to be "initiative" thing, where the stronger force starts with advantage, but the points AND killing ships can give you the upper hand

That's actually what it is already. For endgame, Ordos fights, you start with 160 DP or 200 DP, but then grabbing objectives can boost your fleet to 240 DP. The opposing side starts with 240 DP, but as you start killing ships, that DP moves from "being at the front lines" firing at you to "moving in from the spawn point" and therefore out of the action. Eventually I only have roughly 80 DP's worth of enemy ships firing at my Conquest line, when I'm able to bring my whole fleet to bear on that.

No, thats not the same thing i suggested. Read more than just first sentence or half of it.
I know what current system works like and its flawed.

Yup and in fact that's what you're going for, your ships just mulching through their fleet as you gradually head toward the top of the map.

So it seems like the meta for good battle strategy is to take out a bunch of ships early on (meaning good burst damage such as from missiles) while keeping your ships alive, while you're at a numerical disadvantage at the beginning of the fight. If your fleet can achieve that, then the fight becomes much easier once the enemy fleet is just gradually spawning in to replaces losses, and they're unable to form proper battle lines. Then it's smooth sailing from there.

And that is the problem. Its boring and tedious. Its just a grind at that point, neither demanding nor interesting.

[BCS]

Since I'm in the front, I also distract enemy ships to keep incoming fire on me and away from the Conquests.

Yeah, it's as I feared. I know that generally all you have to do against Ordo is to overflux and/or distract the very first Radiant that comes in - since other Remnant ships are really nothing special - but that is very hard to do reliably without a flagship because of how AI works. (Which is why I keep saying that Radiant is broken and needs a nerf)

Edit: Also note that how despite being 5% of deployed DP, your flagship did 12% total damage - should show this to the guy who argued combat skills are not worth getting because "they only affect one ship in the fleet".

[Hiruma Kai]

No, thats not the same thing i suggested. Read more than just first sentence or half of it.
I know what current system works like and its flawed.

It is possible your suggestion may need a bit more detail, or perhaps an example of how it would play out?  I kind of read it the same way as Vanshilar did.

i would prefer there to be "initiative" thing, where the stronger force starts with advantage, but the points AND killing ships can give you the upper hand
also rework to reinforcements, where the points are actually limited like command points, and they slowly regenerate, but killing enemy ships speeds it up

it doesnt happen as often vanilla (but still does), where i get advantage and then game turns into meatgrinder at top of map, its boring and makes no sense, at that point they should lose the battle and get the option to run or try to reengage but at disadvantage (maybe CR hit?)

So I see 3 distinct suggestions here:
1) Both capture points and killing enemy ships affects reinforcements somehow
 - This is not too far from what we have now.  If you're not doing a speed grab at the beginning, you essentially need to kill enemy ships to push to the capture points anyways.
 - Killing ships does in fact give you the upper hand as you have localized fleet superiority at that point.
- I note this version gives a disincentive to using frigates, since they're the most likely to die early.  Unless you want it based on hull damage done, as opposed to full on ship death.

2) Deployment/Reinforcements is changed to some kind of timed counter, that is then spent from to deploy new ships, but somehow in the favor of the larger or stronger side initially?

-Is this a flat 160 DP/240 DP split like we have at the start?  Some kind of even 60 DP vs 60 DP initially that ramps up  differently for the two sides over time?  In both cases some kind of regenerating reinforcement DP budget?  Is this a counter that counts up every X seconds?  Something like 1 DP every 6 second (10 DP a minute?) baseline for both sides?  Kill 20 DP worth of ships and now it is counting up like 3 DP every 6 seconds?  Capture a point and get +5 DP per minute.  Until it reach some kind of maximum or just keeps going up for both sides?  Is there a maximum number of DP points on the field set by capture points, like we have now?

How would this interact with a solo deployment initially, evading the enemy fleet (and avoiding PPT loss by being far enough away) and letting the deployment regen up while capturing a point here and there, and then do a full deployment with the maximum DP you can collect?

Overall, this strikes me as an even more strongly "win more mechanic" than we have now with just the capture points.  Namely, if you're already winning, this just makes you win even faster.  If reinforcements past your initial deployment are some kind of number counting up, and it's based on capture points and killing ships, and you've killed zero ships, and captured no points, you'll have minimal reinforcements, while the side that is already winning and killing ships gets even more backup to kill faster.  It also means if you're completely losing, you might not even be able to reinforce with anything.  So you're forced into a number of redeployments, potentially eating the victor's CR each time.  Like, what happens when you're engaging multiple fleets for like 1000 DP total, and they only ever deploy 240 at a time?  Are you always going to be at 0% CR on the final deployment for your high tech ships?

Or I'm perhaps misunderstanding your suggestion?

3) Some kind of AI logic which determines that it should give up and retreat sooner than it does now.  Possibly based on ship positioning?

I will point out getting pushed to the top of the map is better for the AI than being completely surrounded in them middle of the map, as you can generally bring less of your fleet to bear.  In those "meatgrinder" situations, half my fleet is usually sitting around doing nothing since it can't shoot through my allied ships.

What would trigger this decision to pull out early and try to re-engage? Certainly if its say 320 DP worth of ship in the enemy fleet, and it deployed 240 DP, did not reinforce with the 80 DP but rather ordered a retreat with 120 DP left on the field, that is a worse tactical situation as the retreating 120 DP is likely to be destroyed while trying to escape.  Re-engaging with just the reserved 80 DP sounds like a poor choice, as opposed to trying to have the 80 DP and 120 DP on the field at the same time, meeting up as the front is pushed back and reinforcements move up.  What is the 80 DP going to do that the 240 DP wasn't able to do, when both sides have refreshed PPT?  Similarly, why is leaving the 120 DP to it's fate the better decision.

Is this mostly a suggestion of having the AI give up sooner?  So most fights don't end in 100% enemy fleet destruction, but more like 75%?  Although that could get really annoying with bounty fleets and having the bounty target running away half the time.

Although, I have been in really big multiple fleet fights that take multiple deployments, since the enemy doesn't actually send all it's reinforcements.  Not quite sure what triggers it, but it's a lot higher than the 240 initial deployment limit.

Yup and in fact that's what you're going for, your ships just mulching through their fleet as you gradually head toward the top of the map.

So it seems like the meta for good battle strategy is to take out a bunch of ships early on (meaning good burst damage such as from missiles) while keeping your ships alive, while you're at a numerical disadvantage at the beginning of the fight. If your fleet can achieve that, then the fight becomes much easier once the enemy fleet is just gradually spawning in to replaces losses, and they're unable to form proper battle lines. Then it's smooth sailing from there.

And that is the problem. Its boring and tedious. Its just a grind at that point, neither demanding nor interesting.

The only other option I see is to have the enemy fleet with more DP run in fear of the smaller player fleet to regroup, which feels weird, and likely less effective overall for the AI fleet side.  The only possible place where it makes sense to abandoned ships already in the battle space to their fate is when the fleet still has any many ships as it initially deployed in reserve, or the player's side has also taken significant losses, although at that point its not the meatgrinder situation we describe here.  Which at end game only really happens when we're talking about 2 or more fleets working together. Or you're purposefully engaging significantly larger fleets with a smaller fleet (i.e. 200 DP with 50 DP) in the early or mid-game.  So probably pretty rare to be honest, as it's mostly a challenge thing.

[vladokapuh]

wow, like starting a plan to modernize an army by selecting sock color for tankers

[Vanshilar]

No, thats not the same thing i suggested. Read more than just first sentence or half of it.
I know what current system works like and its flawed.

Sure seems like it's what you said. Stronger force starts with advantage is starting with extra DP, if you capture points you can deploy more ships, if you kill ships there are less enemy ships on the front lines thus giving you the upper hand. You might have to give more details as to what you have in mind that's functionally different than what the game already has.

And that is the problem. Its boring and tedious. Its just a grind at that point, neither demanding nor interesting.

What it means is that your fleet can completely overwhelm the enemy fleet. So the "problem" is that you're past the difficulty curve of the game. It's "neither demanding nor interesting" just because your fleet is too powerful. So at that point it's a matter of moving on to more difficult fleets, or multiple fleets, or if you're already fighting multiple of the most difficult fleets, congratulations, you can "beat" the game. Then you can try doing it with a different fleet, etc.

Yeah, it's as I feared. I know that generally all you have to do against Ordo is to overflux and/or distract the very first Radiant that comes in - since other Remnant ships are really nothing special - but that is very hard to do reliably without a flagship because of how AI works. (Which is why I keep saying that Radiant is broken and needs a nerf)

Well I don't really need to do it (when I do the 5-Conquest testing, they go off and fight the fleet, including the Radiants, on their own, while I just help clean up stragglers on the sides), though it helps. Your flagship is the most important ship in your fleet, the Radiant is the most important ship in the enemy fleet, it makes sense that you should be there to help out. I don't see how that's a bad thing, and in the video, I'm there basically just to distract while I go about my business killing other ships.

Edit: Also note that how despite being 5% of deployed DP, your flagship did 12% total damage - should show this to the guy who argued combat skills are not worth getting because "they only affect one ship in the fleet".

Yeah that's nothing new, usually the flagship contributes around 2-3 times its worth in DP in terms of damage, and is a key contributor to the overall smoothness of the battle even if it's not doing damage (such as distracting Radiants). So usually I get 5-7 personal skills, but it does vary depending on how many points the fleet needs, depending on whatever flavor I'm going for.

Is this mostly a suggestion of having the AI give up sooner?  So most fights don't end in 100% enemy fleet destruction, but more like 75%?  Although that could get really annoying with bounty fleets and having the bounty target running away half the time.

I will say I much rather enemy fleets fight to the end, since them fleeing and having to chase them down (and burning more CR) is annoying. One of the reason I prefer fighting Ordos fleets over faction fleets. So it's more gameplay over realism.

Although, I have been in really big multiple fleet fights that take multiple deployments, since the enemy doesn't actually send all it's reinforcements.  Not quite sure what triggers it, but it's a lot higher than the 240 initial deployment limit.

I don't actually know, but I *suspect* it's when you kill a bunch of enemy ships at once, when there are so few on the battlefield at that point in time that the enemy admiral AI decides to just retreat to start a new round rather than bringing in reinforcements. I don't really know though.

[Ryan390]

In terms of limiting battle sizes, is the main argument one purely of FPS / performance?

I've never liked the fact that two massive fleets can fly into each other, yet maybe half the ships actually go into battle while the other half waits patiently. 

On modern day rigs, I assume it's been tested to throw every ship in a max capacity fleet into battle?
I assume it kills the game or is unplayable? Otherwise why not, I'd prefer to just simplify the whole thing and have two fleets battle it out, as they would in reality.