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Author Topic: Combat Readiness  (Read 108300 times)

Gaizokubanou

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #120 on: February 23, 2013, 05:15:42 AM »

Besides, bigger problem would be command point shortage anyways.  Command points are already so scarce yet so negligible in their positive effects (outside of most generic order of 'capture nav point A') that I am already encouraged to ignore command point system and to simply outfit AI ships to be more defensive so that they can just brute force their way out of the idiocy they sometime dwell in.

If frigates were to become this liability that require a command point per single frigate or else put my elite pilots in jeopardy, I imagine I for one would simply stop using frigates because it's already hard enough to justify frigates once cruisers come into play (outside of hyperion flagship).

Or take this approach... if players are suppose to order retreat to frigates/ships with low CR... shouldn't us players already be keeping an eye out for CR on all of our ships?  So where would this extra burden come from if retreat were to cost CR instead of command point?  You mentioned something about optimal order but I don't see how the optimal timing for retreat change because of the resource change since the cause/trigger for retreat remains identical (low CR).

What I mean by "optimal" is "optimal play". If retreat orders are unlimited, then "optimal play" requires you to order retreats for damaged ships at precisely the right moments, and to do that, you'd have to constantly watch the map. If it requries a command point, though, you're going to batch up orders anyway, so when you decide to give some orders, you'll also look around for whatever makes sense to retreat, and do it then. So it's a mode of interaction that doesn't intrude on the piloting portion of the game as much.

I hope that makes sense. In the early versions of the game, you had completely unlimited orders... which made microing everything as much as possible "optimal". That just doesn't let you focus on the piloting nearly enough. Given how that worked out (or, rather, didn't), I'm extremely wary of allowing unlimited orders for anything.


As to whether frigates are "worth it", honestly, that's a side issue to this discussion. Making sure that they are would be a balance issue, whether it's from something they do in combat, or a way they behave in the campaign, or a combination of the two. There's nothing inherent to this mechanic that's going to make them worth it or not, and it's not like everything else about frigates is being held static - they're actually getting a speed buff to go along with this.

I could easily see frigates being stronger on the whole just because they regain CR out of combat faster.

Ok that clears things up a lot more, thanks again.  I still do have worries that this will further paint the command points not as a positive-"these are cool orders I can give!" but as negative-"I can only give this many orders so I better make sure my ships don't rely on them".  That may be just a huge lack of understanding on my part thus far, but really the only ship that feels like it warrants special care enough to invest a whole command point into is carrier for me.  I tried whole wings of bombers in rally point based flanking but it was awkward and not that useful as AI was just too scattered to make non-nav point based play much relevance.  How strong would frigates have to be a command point hog when even a whole fleet of flanking bomber wings is questionable?  It would take a whole lot of functionality for me to be convinced of bringing along ships that require dedicated command point babysitting (carrier being example as it's core part of carrier-fleet play)... am I just missing something here or is that how it should be and I"m getting wrong vibe ("reliance on command point for functionality is a penalty" vibe) on this for no reason?

This may be too off topic though so I understand if you don't want to focus on this too much on this thread.  And again thanks for such great feedback!  It's rare and awesome to see such 'ground level' reasoning behind lot of design choices.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2013, 11:33:26 AM by Gaizokubanou »
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MindsEye

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #121 on: February 23, 2013, 05:55:35 AM »

Would not the problem of kiting be solved by lowering weapon range? Frigs with high speed have less targeting computers as well as less power for engines?
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Gothars

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #122 on: February 23, 2013, 06:12:52 AM »

Would not the problem of kiting be solved by lowering weapon range? Frigs with high speed have less targeting computers as well as less power for engines?

No, kiting is a bit of a generalization. We also mean tactics where you dash in, deal damage, retreat, recover, repeat. Nothing to do with range. (Is there an English term for Nadelstichtaktik (needle-stick tactic)?)
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BillyRueben

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #123 on: February 23, 2013, 07:31:43 AM »

Would not the problem of kiting be solved by lowering weapon range? Frigs with high speed have less targeting computers as well as less power for engines?

That's already there (indirectly). Frigates (usually) can't mount the larger weapons, which (generally) have longer ranges. Then you also have to consider the Targeting Computer buff which increases weapon range based on hull category.
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harrumph

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #124 on: February 23, 2013, 07:48:04 AM »

(Is there an English term for Nadelstichtaktik (needle-stick tactic)?)
I think "sting" or "prick" is a better translation of "Stich." You can say "pinprick attacks" or "pinprick tactics" in English. People also say "death by a thousand cuts."
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friday

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #125 on: February 23, 2013, 08:07:30 AM »

(Is there an English term for Nadelstichtaktik (needle-stick tactic)?)
I think "sting" or "prick" is a better translation of "Stich." You can say "pinprick attacks" or "pinprick tactics" in English. People also say "death by a thousand cuts."

Guerilla Warfare or hit-and-run tactics come to my mind then.
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Wyvern

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #126 on: February 23, 2013, 10:12:59 AM »

Besides, bigger problem would be command point shortage anyways.  Command points are already so scarce yet so negligible in their positive effects (outside of most generic order of 'capture nav point A') that I am already encouraged to ignore command point system and to simply outfit AI ships to be more defensive so that they can just brute force their way out of the idiocy they sometime dwell in.

If frigates were to become this liability that require a command point per single frigate or else put my elite pilots in jeopardy, I imagine I for one would simply stop using frigates because it's already hard enough to justify frigates once cruisers come into play (outside of hyperion flagship).

Or take this approach... if players are suppose to order retreat to frigates/ships with low CR... shouldn't us players already be keeping an eye out for CR on all of our ships?  So where would this extra burden come from if retreat were to cost CR instead of command point?  You mentioned something about optimal order but I don't see how the optimal timing for retreat change because of the resource change since the cause/trigger for retreat remains identical (low CR).

What I mean by "optimal" is "optimal play". If retreat orders are unlimited, then "optimal play" requires you to order retreats for damaged ships at precisely the right moments, and to do that, you'd have to constantly watch the map. If it requries a command point, though, you're going to batch up orders anyway, so when you decide to give some orders, you'll also look around for whatever makes sense to retreat, and do it then. So it's a mode of interaction that doesn't intrude on the piloting portion of the game as much.

I hope that makes sense. In the early versions of the game, you had completely unlimited orders... which made microing everything as much as possible "optimal". That just doesn't let you focus on the piloting nearly enough. Given how that worked out (or, rather, didn't), I'm extremely wary of allowing unlimited orders for anything.
Could we get, instead, some generic fleet-level orders?  Here are some examples of things I'd like to be able to do:
1: Have fighter squadrons automatically retreat if I have no carrier in play and they're damaged to the point where they'd normally automatically go repair.
2: Be able to adjust when fighter squadrons go to repair - in particular, I want two-fighter squadrons to be much more paranoid, heading for cover at around 60-75% total wing health+armor, instead of staying in combat when one fighter is down but the other is still untouched.
3: Have frigates automatically retreat at some specific CR level.
4: Have some special-purpose ships, like Buffalo IIs and Vigilances, retreat when they're out of LRMs.

This would give the player the ability to deal with things like ships needing to retreat at particular times, without having to micromanage the exact details.  Add a combat status message when a ship decides it's time to retreat, and the player could go cancel the order (at the cost of a command point) if the situation really called for it.  Or, y'know, they could just turn automatic retreat off if they didn't want it.

The above list just dealt with retreating, but there are some other things I'd like - for example, the ability to tell fighter squadrons to avoid capital ships, period, unless explicitly ordered to engage.  I'd rather my wasp wings didn't get anywhere near an enemy onslaught, thanks.

...You may notice a theme to some of my suggestions, here.  In general, I'd like to be able to fine-tune AI behaviors to better match what I want out of them; the same theme is behind my repeated suggestion of being able to adjust autofire targetting priorities.  An ideal battle, for me, would be one where I come in, set a couple of capture commands, maybe deploy a few more ships once I have some nodes under my control, and otherwise spend the time flying my flagship and trusting that the rest of my fleet will do useful things on their own.  I don't want to have to pay attention to CR levels of my frigates and give them even batch retreat commands.  I don't want to have to pause, set my target to an individual enemy fighter, unpause, repeat, just so my phase beam turrets will actually kill off fighters instead of the destroyer I'm busily firing my plasma cannon at.  Etc.
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Harabeck

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #127 on: February 23, 2013, 12:24:29 PM »

I also like the idea of being able to tweak certain AI parameters outside of battle. I always found that to be a neat aspect of Dragon Age, and it would be even more useful here.
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PCCL

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #128 on: February 23, 2013, 12:58:45 PM »

for the retreat thing, I think it could be made free, or even free for all ships

then, when ships reach a certain health dependent on their stats and perhaps officer personality when it comes in, they can request permission to disengage (maybe a message comes up on your sidebar and their radar symbol on the edge of your screen starts flashing) at which point you can go to tactical and order them for free

maybe then they can auto retreat, again depending on health and officer personality. At another health threshold the ship will rout, retreating regardless of order, and you get another message saying ISS Example (Lasher-Class) has routed

maybe this should be a whole new topic, just thought I'd post it here for now
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Alex

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #129 on: February 23, 2013, 01:06:33 PM »

Yeah, this is getting entirely off-topic, so let's keep anything no directly CR-related out of this thread.

(As far as allowing AI parameters to be tweaked ("retreat at X% hull/CR", etc), it's not a road I want to go down. It sounds simple, but would imo introduce more problems than it would solve, and would ultimately need to be pretty intricate to work well, assuming it could actually be beaten into shape. Tweaking ship AI also isn't something I'm keen on having as part of the gameplay, as it's one of those things where if you have it at all, players have to use it to play optimally.

As far as fighter targeting, that could just be resolved by auto-targeting the nearest fighter when a targeted fighter is destroyed...)

@Gaizokubanou: Well, I did mention possibly having more command points to start with. Again, a balancing issue :)
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CopperCoyote

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #130 on: February 23, 2013, 02:05:53 PM »

Will there be a marker or notification that your ships are losing CR during a fight?
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Gothars

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #131 on: February 23, 2013, 02:43:36 PM »

Will there be a marker or notification that your ships are losing CR during a fight?

Yes, on the Command UI there will be a CR bar next to the hull bar of each ship.


Funny, one of the ideas I'm considering actually is having fighter refit use up carrier CR instead of supplies directly. This is good, probably means that it's a natural way to handle it.

Would that (finally) introduce a major performance difference to carriers? Like the Gemini being able to refit 5 wings and the Astral 50? 
« Last Edit: February 23, 2013, 02:48:42 PM by Gothars »
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Gaizokubanou

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #132 on: February 23, 2013, 04:15:05 PM »

Funny, one of the ideas I'm considering actually is having fighter refit use up carrier CR instead of supplies directly. This is good, probably means that it's a natural way to handle it.

Would that (finally) introduce a major performance difference to carriers? Like the Gemini being able to refit 5 wings and the Astral 50? 

Whoa, nice catch.  That would be superb way to further balance the carriers beside the hangar slot and some minor weapon loadout difference.
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Degraine

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #133 on: February 23, 2013, 05:00:21 PM »

(As far as allowing AI parameters to be tweaked ("retreat at X% hull/CR", etc), it's not a road I want to go down. It sounds simple, but would imo introduce more problems than it would solve, and would ultimately need to be pretty intricate to work well, assuming it could actually be beaten into shape. Tweaking ship AI also isn't something I'm keen on having as part of the gameplay, as it's one of those things where if you have it at all, players have to use it to play optimally.

If I wanted that kind of gameplay, I'd play Gratuitous Space Battles.
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MindsEye

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Re: Combat Readiness
« Reply #134 on: February 23, 2013, 05:32:45 PM »

I think one of the problems is if you add human intelligence to your entire fleet it would be a massacre.It would require (prob) alot of rework to the enemy ai to adapt to your tactics. You can already wtf slaughter the ai by controlling 1 ship yourself so imagine if you did all ships.Anyway thats my guess.I am on your side tho.I really wish to be able to set parameters for my wings and ships.
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