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Author Topic: an assault order for ships  (Read 3030 times)

mkire

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an assault order for ships
« on: November 07, 2012, 05:14:56 PM »

So there's been times when i wanted something dead badly enough that i wanted my entire fleet to ignore everything else in order to kill it. Currently the only way to obtain this effect is to hope i have enough command points to stick an attack order on it and then assign everything to the task of killing it.

from my admittedly ignorant perspective, it should be relatively easy to implement a 'all ships, attack this' order, given there's one for 'all ships, attack this location'
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Thaago

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Re: an assault order for ships
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2012, 05:20:12 PM »

Right now the "engage" command does almost everything you want. Ships aren't too single minded about the target (they will fight ships around the target for example) and bombers won't attack. In the patch notes it seems that ships will be more single minded and also bombers will attack on an engage command.
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mkire

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Re: an assault order for ships
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2012, 07:50:12 PM »

Isn't Engage limited to cruisers and capships? I want to be able to say 'all ships, kill that ____' and be able to target any enemy ship.
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Aleskander

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Re: an assault order for ships
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2012, 08:37:01 PM »

Engage is everything. Part of the great AI that alex has made involves the ships being a little bit random, but it looks like alex is working on that.
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mkire

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Re: an assault order for ships
« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2012, 09:39:03 PM »

Engage is everything. Part of the great AI that alex has made involves the ships being a little bit random, but it looks like alex is working on that.

no, i mean i can't place an engage order on frigates. I don't know if it can target destroyers or not, but if it can't i'd certainly want it to.

Yes, it might seem silly to order an entire fleet to engage a frigate, but there's been times where i wanted to and my only option was to direct order my fleet into doing that
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Alex

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Re: an assault order for ships
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2012, 09:41:58 PM »

In the new (as yet unreleased) version:

Intercept: Can be set on any target, only draws fighters/frigates by default (but can have other ships direct-assigned to it), results in single-minded dedication to attacking the target. To a point, anyway - it won't be actively suicidal, but it'll attempt to attack that target if possible.

Engage: Can be set on any target larger than a frigate, draws all kinds of ships, not single-minded (will engage nearby targets of opportunity).


Bombers assigned to either will go for the specified target, w/o being distracted by nearby enemy ships.
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arcibalde

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Re: an assault order for ships
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2012, 11:04:45 PM »

There is one problem with that. It's like in Nexus Jupiter incident. You could take all yours ships and target single enemy with them. Enemy ship would explode very quickly and then you could select next target. That way you could destroy entire enemy fleet easy and AI didn't have any answer to that.

Well, i wouldn't like something like that in Starfarer. I like that you can't focus your entire fleet on single enemy target.
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mkire

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Re: an assault order for ships
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2012, 11:43:38 PM »

In the new (as yet unreleased) version:

Intercept: Can be set on any target, only draws fighters/frigates by default (but can have other ships direct-assigned to it), results in single-minded dedication to attacking the target. To a point, anyway - it won't be actively suicidal, but it'll attempt to attack that target if possible.

Engage: Can be set on any target larger than a frigate, draws all kinds of ships, not single-minded (will engage nearby targets of opportunity).


Bombers assigned to either will go for the specified target, w/o being distracted by nearby enemy ships.
oh. here i am complaining and you've already fixed my issue.
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Gothars

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Re: an assault order for ships
« Reply #8 on: November 08, 2012, 04:00:23 AM »

Enemy ship would explode very quickly and then you could select next target. That way you could destroy entire enemy fleet easy and AI didn't have any answer to that.
Nexus' AI wasn't anything like Starfarer's.
If all your ships would focus on one enemy, that one would retreat backwards to get out of distance and all other enemies would flank your ships and kick their ass...
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Alex

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Re: an assault order for ships
« Reply #9 on: November 08, 2012, 08:56:17 AM »

oh. here i am complaining and you've already fixed my issue.

Not complaining, making a suggestion :)

Enemy ship would explode very quickly and then you could select next target. That way you could destroy entire enemy fleet easy and AI didn't have any answer to that.
Nexus' AI wasn't anything like Starfarer's.
If all your ships would focus on one enemy, that one would retreat backwards to get out of distance and all other enemies would flank your ships and kick their ass...

Yeah... I guess we'll see how it plays out with the new Intercept, but I think its usage is situational. I've had a few cases where I used it to quickly take out an isolated enemy carrier (which felt great, to be able to express that in an order and have it be efficiently followed), but overriding targeting priority for ships in the thick of things generally isn't good. They usually pick a target - and a movement direction - based on what's least likely to get them surrounded, so removing that as an option can lead to a quick demise.
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arcibalde

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Re: an assault order for ships
« Reply #10 on: November 08, 2012, 10:49:29 AM »

Nexus' AI wasn't anything like Starfarer's.
If all your ships would focus on one enemy, that one would retreat backwards to get out of distance and all other enemies would flank your ships and kick their ass...
I'm not saying that those AIs are same. He could retreat if he is faster but if he is slower or same speed, well. So as dude from Red Alert says (after they kill Hitler): "Time will tell. Sooner or later time will tell."
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