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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: Combat Readyness isn't fun..  (Read 151188 times)

Sproginator

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #255 on: September 24, 2013, 08:54:27 AM »

Quote
I don't see a problem with this, seeing as in the final game you aren't supposed to see capital ships very often at all.
The problem now is speed is key, and capital ships are too slow and consume too much to be worth using except for the rare system defense fleet battle.  In previous versions, more fleet compositions were effective.  Frigate swarms, destroyer swarms, cruiser squads, lone battleship, carrier groups.  Now, it is just frigate swarms for most battles.

Completely agree
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Cycerin

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #256 on: September 24, 2013, 08:59:25 AM »

Imagine if you were camping a jump point and you could have fleets sent from an outpost to resupply you. Maybe you had a fleet consisting of an Onslaught, a few destroyers, a few frigates and some support ships. See the line of thought? CR makes everything meaningful. Logistics makes everything meaningful. If you want to play with the big shots in the finalized campaign, I imagine you could have a support framework set in place: industry, henchmen, whatnot. Or you could just invest all your exp and fleet planning in making it feasible to rove around in a Conquest. It would just take sacrifices in some areas, such as... you know, cost efficiency.

The rest is fine-tuning, which I agree is needed.

There are probably going to be big ships that are made for roaming around in down the road too, now that I think about it (I could foresee the Apogee, Venture, Doom etc as good candidates for this) but right now, the experience progression in the campaign lets you run pretty much any sort of composition you want if you are willing to deal with the drawbacks.

My core argument is that there's nothing wrong with frigates being good for "fish eating fish" type fleet gameplay, because if they weren't, they wouldn't have a good niche when the game fleshes out. And until then, you can adjust the game as you like through modding.

Note that this post mainly adresses the argument that "CR/logistics isn't fun".
« Last Edit: September 24, 2013, 09:01:27 AM by Cycerin »
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Debido

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #257 on: September 24, 2013, 09:01:22 AM »

I think everyones contribution to this ... hmm ... stakeholder meeting regarding the current itteration of CR and how it can be improved in future has been very passionate, and it's great to see such an active discussion.

What I would like from the proponents of the first CR iteration is more understanding of our perspective, we're often dismissed as simply not playing the game correctly. I am not against CR. CR does change my decision matrix but does not make it more more fun and 'disempowers my fantasy' (Thanks for the GDC13 link on D3 Fireball14) and I've already posted several solutions as compromises (Use/Damage base CR penalty and Fleet Formation) to help maintain the fun in the game and ensure CR is a framework that provide even more options.

What I'd like to see is understanding, compromise or suggestions that can make CR better than it is so that both parties can be satisfied. We're at 17 pages of debate on the matter without satisfaction for both parties, and I'm hoping more constructive feedback can be obtained from the existing CR proponents.

We all want this to be the best 2D/4X space game out there, so let's work together on a solution.
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Fireball14

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #258 on: September 24, 2013, 09:25:25 AM »

Im pretty sure there will be ways in the future in which the enemy will HAVE to fight you (for instance, by defending or attacking a planet) and you WILL be wanting to use overwhelming force. In which case, having a slow fleet with capital ships and their support, will be no problem. Do you think Starsector is going to be a game about chasing Buffalo IIs forever?

Asking for a core game mechanic to be neutered just because the game is in a transitory phase is pretty meaningless, and you are in fact playing an alpha. Until the game fleshes out, feel free to use any spreadsheet editing program to mod CR out of the picture entirely/ cut supply costs across the board/ change the way AI responds to your fleet. If it's that important, then it shouldn't be a big effort.
I'm telling this from gamedev point of view:
Players don't know full developers picture(right now even i can only analyzed it partially), but here is main rules:
1) Finished gameplay wont change. I did it hundred times as i developed games. You make a system you like and you stick to it to very end(even if it is bad). Reason for this is simple: When you build game systems, you build on top of what you have. If you remove it from game, your game most likely will crash, too many small knots out there tighten everything together. Yes mostlikly if core system is flawed, you will try to migrate it with other systems, but you wont be able to change it completely. So i can tell everyone with 99% chance that no mater what we say devs wont cut this system.
2) About missing mechanics - as i see it outposts gonna be resource generating systems (one way or another). So there is huge probability that outpost will migrate some of supply drain and will enable use of large ships.
3) Most specialized mechanic will be developed during campaign quests stages, so we will see a lot of new small systems in near future.
 
So lets get one thing straight. No mater what i or anyone else say(even if we all say its bad) it wont change fact that CR system will stay. Most likely it will be rebalanced a lot but fact is a fact - new core system is here.
 
Now as a gamer i hate it =) But as developer i see ways that this system will do its job.
 
So back to being a gamer: CR is too match realism in an arcade game  ;D

Quote
We all want this to be the best 2D/4X space game out there, so let's work together on a solution.
I will think about it on my way home from work, and then maybe il find some solution. Right now everything coming to my mind ends up duplicating damage repair system. And that not a solution.
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Uomoz

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #259 on: September 24, 2013, 09:45:15 AM »

Quote
I don't see a problem with this, seeing as in the final game you aren't supposed to see capital ships very often at all.
The problem now is speed is key, and capital ships are too slow and consume too much to be worth using except for the rare system defense fleet battle.  In previous versions, more fleet compositions were effective.  Frigate swarms, destroyer swarms, cruiser squads, lone battleship, carrier groups.  Now, it is just frigate swarms for most battles.

Completely agree

I find it amazing when 1 topics says FRIGATES UP! And the next one FRIGATES OP! I do believe that it's a good sign of balance.
People, I just want to remind you that is still an Alpha, many many ships still needs to have a role to fill (because it's not in the game yet). Like defending.
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Sproginator

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #260 on: September 24, 2013, 09:54:00 AM »

Frigates were perfect before the update, hard to hit, but if you did, just dead haha
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Cycerin

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #261 on: September 24, 2013, 09:59:42 AM »

The good thing is everyone is passionate about Starsector and wants the game to be great. : )
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Uomoz

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #262 on: September 24, 2013, 10:01:00 AM »

Ok what changed:

They are faster.

They have a timer.

Weaker? I don't know I barely ever reach the timer duration. I say they are stronger.
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Histidine

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #263 on: September 24, 2013, 10:11:35 AM »

What I would like from the proponents of the first CR iteration is more understanding of our perspective, we're often dismissed as simply not playing the game correctly.
Speaking frankly? I'd say that really is the problem with a lot of the complaints about CR (though by no means all, not necessarily even a majority), which either required only mild adaptation of playstyle to fix, or involved things that have no business being viable in the final game anyhow.

But anyway, to get to the point:
What I'd like to see is understanding, compromise or suggestions that can make CR better than it is so that both parties can be satisfied.

Right. I haven't done this before, so I'll list the specific problems I, personally have with the current CR implementation (I don't necessarily think these are large problems, which is part of why I haven't complained about them, but I'd like to see them fixed regardless).

1) Supplies are too expensive, which means that if you forget to save up enough for repairs and recovery, you get into the infamous death spiral. (newb trap)
2) CR recovery times are long to the point of being difficult to believe.
3) Ships can be completely rendered helpless by being brought down to <10% CR, which breaks suspension of disbelief.
4) The cost of fielding a ship is decoupled from what actually happens in the battle it's sent into. This manifests itself in two ways:
-4a: Ships cost a flat amount to deploy regardless of how much fighting they actually do.
-4b: The "hard-foughtness" of a battle (as used to calculate CR recovery from the stand down option) is based linearly on the DP value of enemies destroyed, which results in the "5 Hounds sent one at a time renders capital ship completely helpless" problem (it's actually way harder than that, and the AI will never realistically use it, but the fact that it's possible suggests a problem nevertheless)

(1) and (2) are a matter of twiddling knobs in the definition files, so I won't discuss those.
Alex suggests a planned fix for (3) in this post, so I'll leave that aside as well. That leaves (4).

Okay, (4a). This one's a real pickle, because while it's obviously "wrong" , it's also awfully easy to come up with a "solution" that makes things worse by promoting gamey behavior in order to minmax CR. Like the popular suggestion of using ammo consumption as a factor in the calculation; during 0.6's development, Alex actually came up with the idea of hitting ships with a CR cost for using missiles. Yeah... I think you can see the problem with that one. Damage taken on armor/hull, another popular suggestion, is already modeled by the current repair system.

That said, on consideration, I think the idea of taking the "peak active performance" concept from the 0.6.1a patch thread and applying it to all ships (in addition to a reduced form of the current flat deployment cost) would probably be the best solution here. It seems to me to be the "best of both worlds" option, since the distinguishing state is "in combat" versus "not in combat" , which makes it a) sensible, and b) difficult or impossible to game (and c) encourages efficiency without promoting bean counting). Additionally, depending on the values used it could also alleviate the previous problem #2.

(4b) should be largely covered by the fix to (4a), but here's an additional idea. Currently the recovery factor seems to run from 100% at no kills to 0% at (killed DP value == own deployed DP value). You could add a constant to it, so it instead scales from (say) 100% at (KDP == DDP*0.5) to 0% at (KDP == DDP*1.5) - this establishes a minimum value to commit in order to whittle down a capital's CR with wave attacks.

...Okay, where was I going with this post? I'm sure it was somewhere, but I can't figure it out. Anyway, there you have it.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2013, 10:41:34 AM by Histidine »
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Gothars

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #264 on: September 24, 2013, 10:28:04 AM »

So back to being a gamer: CR is too match* realism in an arcade game  ;D

Too much*?

Assuming that's what you meant, there lies the main dividing factor. Players who love Starsector for what it is (or rather, was before the update) and those who love it for what it will become. It is/was a straightforward action grinder with some tactics. It will become a rather complex simulation sandbox. That was always the plan, and I don't think there is any way to archive that goal without making the action part less accessible along the way. My hope is that many of those who tend to value simpler action games will be taken in by Starsector's other aspects as the development progresses.

The unlucky stroke of this update is that the lessened accessibility is added without also expanding the simulation aspects by a great deal. So, I'm already looking forward to see what the next update will be all about  :)


The good thing is everyone is passionate about Starsector and wants the game to be great. : )

*thumbs-up*
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mendonca

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #265 on: September 24, 2013, 10:32:29 AM »

On supply costs - why is the death spiral a bad thing?

Aren't we allowed to lose at games anymore? What's wrong with dying and rolling up a new character, having learnt from the last one?
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PCCL

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #266 on: September 24, 2013, 10:33:05 AM »

1) Supplies are too expensive, which means that if you forget to save up enough for repairs and recovery, you get into the infamous death spiral. (newb trap)
2) CR recovery times are long to the point of being difficult to believe.
3) Ships can be completely rendered helpless by being brought down to <10% CR, which breaks suspension of disbelief.
4) The cost of fielding a ship is decoupled from what actually happens in the battle it's sent into. This manifests itself in two ways:
-4a: Ships cost a flat amount to deploy regardless of how much fighting they actually do.
-4b: The "hard-foughtness" of a battle (as used to calculate CR recovery from the stand down option) is based linearly on the DP value of enemies destroyed, which results in the "5 Hounds sent one at a time renders capital ship completely helpless" problem (it's actually way harder than that, and the AI will never realistically use it, but the fact that it's possible suggests a problem nevertheless"

1 and 2 I don't agree with, but as you said, personal opinions, twddling knobs and all that

3 is true though... would be nice if 0 CR can still be fielded, they're just really bad (think it can be done on config/settings until alex does his thing)

4a) When active peak readiness is implemented, I'm thinking of experimenting with 0 flat CR to deploy, no degrading performance delay, and ships will all lose CR at varying rates, this will mean ships ONLY lose CR by fighting and their loss rate will determine how much CR they need per deployment. Not sure how well that would work (especially how AI would handle it), maybe a combination of the 2 would be ideal

4b) again, it would never happen in the current campaign AI. But if it did, according to alex an onslaught destroying a hound and then standing down will likely only consume 4 percent of CR (he said %20 over 5 waves of single hounds). Until it becomes a real problem, I... well... don't see the problem
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Sproginator

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #267 on: September 24, 2013, 10:37:51 AM »

Ok what changed:

They are faster.

They have a timer.

Weaker? I don't know I barely ever reach the timer duration. I say they are stronger.

I never said they were weaker?.....
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Thaago

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #268 on: September 24, 2013, 10:52:53 AM »

On supply costs - why is the death spiral a bad thing?

Aren't we allowed to lose at games anymore? What's wrong with dying and rolling up a new character, having learnt from the last one?

Damn straight! +100 points to you sir!
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BillyRueben

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #269 on: September 24, 2013, 11:13:51 AM »

On supply costs - why is the death spiral a bad thing?

Aren't we allowed to lose at games anymore? What's wrong with dying and rolling up a new character, having learnt from the last one?

Damn straight! +100 points to you sir!

And one more point on top of those.
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