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Author Topic: Return of Surrender Mechanics  (Read 5423 times)

JDCollie

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Return of Surrender Mechanics
« on: April 23, 2014, 01:10:31 PM »

I made a comment in another thread, but I feel it would be more appropriate here:

Surrender Mechanics

Quote
I would like to see officers bring back a surrendering mechanic. That is, if a captain's perceived chance of survival falls below his "courage" threshold, he/she has a chance to either surrender or straight up flee.

I say this because I really liked the old surrender mechanic where you would capture a ship basically by default if it was unable to fight. Now, I think that the new mechanics with how ships can be crash mothballed and etc in order to flee makes more sense, but it still seems like there should be situations where an enemy captain should simply surrender rather than taking the chance of being shot of of the sky.

(unless of course that mechanic exists in the current build and I just don't know about it >.>  )

Obviously this was made in the context of adding officers, but even without them, it makes sense that not every ship would risk running, especially if the pursuing fleet is faster and/or the ship in question is at such low hull or CR that it cannot enter the field safely without crash mothballing.


The Cost
I don't want surrender to be free. While these ships would obviously come with crew, hull, and weapons intact, I would expect them to start at 1% CR. After all, when a ship suddenly switches sides, a commander doesn't just welcome them with open arms. The reduced combat readiness represents the lockdown of ship systems during the sweeping of the ship and examination of the crew, not to mention integration of ship command systems with the fleet at large. Perhaps the CR loss could be partially negated by the presence of Soldiers within the fleet, as they are trained and equipped for such action thus speeding the transfer of the ship.

A surrendered ship would still be a huge boon, but this way it wouldn't allow a fleet which captures a surrendered ship to jump immediately into combat with the turncoats as their flagship.


Vanilla Boarding
To be clear, I don't want this to replace current boarding mechanics. Boarding is a hostile action with high risk for a specific reward. Surrender would occur independently, after potential combat engagement, but before pursuit deployment. That means, ships aren't going to surrender if you don't commit to chase their cowardly little asses down.

Also, similar to boarding, I would like the option to blow the ship out of sky (or let it go). Since it is trying to surrender, it won't be combat ready anyway, so destroying it shouldn't be an issue logically.

« Last Edit: April 23, 2014, 02:06:12 PM by JDCollie »
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Metroidude

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2014, 02:12:02 PM »

I wasn't playing when the surrender mechanics were in operation, but it sounds cool.

The cost of what you're saying makes sense. You can't just surrender and expect them to immediately be loyal to you.

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JDCollie

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2014, 02:28:27 PM »

I wasn't playing when the surrender mechanics were in operation, but it sounds cool.

The cost of what you're saying makes sense. You can't just surrender and expect them to immediately be loyal to you.


Originally, when you encountered an enemy fleet which lacked the crew to man a ship, that ship would be unable to participate in combat. Once you won the battle, any such "uncrewed" ships were unconditionally surrendered to you. There was also a mechanic where ships you disabled in combat could be boarded similar to now, though simpler.

The downside of the mechanic was that a you could occasionally encounter fleets composed of a Hound and an uncrewed Onslaught, essentially giving you the capital for free, even if the Hound managed to escape. In the new system, that doesn't happen, but it still seems like there should be occasions where a ship simply doesn't want to get away or die trying.
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FlashFrozen

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2014, 02:47:02 PM »

Well in the case that this is brought back, why not make it so it like sending out salvage teams, in that when you choose to do it you fleet is slowed on the campaign map but instead of 1 burn speed, your fleet is locked in it's current spot for 0 - 2 days as they transfer crew/ bring the ship to a minimum x% of CR.

Would make it harder to steal a hegemony onslaught and get away with it if there were more Hegemony nearby.
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JDCollie

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2014, 07:23:32 PM »

Well in the case that this is brought back, why not make it so it like sending out salvage teams, in that when you choose to do it you fleet is slowed on the campaign map but instead of 1 burn speed, your fleet is locked in it's current spot for 0 - 2 days as they transfer crew/ bring the ship to a minimum x% of CR.

Would make it harder to steal a hegemony onslaught and get away with it if there were more Hegemony nearby.
Ooooh, I like that! It makes capturing a surrendered ship much more of a strategic decision, since you have to be prepared for any potential interception fleets.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2014, 05:42:20 AM »

And what happens when we have multiple ships that surrender? Will get only one? several? All of them? If not all of them, would we get to choose or have it random?
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JDCollie

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2014, 11:40:50 AM »

And what happens when we have multiple ships that surrender? Will get only one? several? All of them? If not all of them, would we get to choose or have it random?
Originally, it was possible for you to board as many ships as have surrendered. I'd like a similar mechanic for multiple surrenders, allowing the player to choose which ships to capture and which not to, with each ship adding wait time. In order to make the choice reasonable, I'd also like to see an indicator on each surrendered ship describing how long each capture will take, so that it isn't just a shot in the dark.
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Aereto

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2014, 10:29:29 AM »

Boarding a ship by force and boarding a surrendering ship treated as two different scenarios by the mechanics. At least I don't have to see my shuttles blown to bits by each possible boarding scenario... then again, a surrendering ship even has its own dead man's switch. Boarding a surrendering ship only to find it rigged to explode? That has to hurt, unless the ship can scan and detect before boarding.

I must be overthinking, perhaps?   ???
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Vind

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2014, 07:44:32 PM »

Maybe introduce surrender mechanic for fighters only? Right now you cant capture fighters at all and this is wrong. Then single lone enemy fighter escapes battle and dead within day because of accidents from cargo/fuel/overload it is not very cool.
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JDCollie

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #9 on: April 27, 2014, 03:25:33 PM »

Maybe introduce surrender mechanic for fighters only? Right now you cant capture fighters at all and this is wrong. Then single lone enemy fighter escapes battle and dead within day because of accidents from cargo/fuel/overload it is not very cool.
Fighter's ALWAYS escape me right now; they're too darn fast to catch. Yet often the reason they're running is because they have no crew / CR remaining. It's like, look, watch the unmanned fighters run away. *sigh*  :-\  They really should surrender when their parent fleet is annihilated.
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ciago92

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #10 on: April 27, 2014, 04:17:15 PM »

Fighters really should surrender when their parent fleet is annihilated.

I disagree. I mean yes, in theory, but you wouldn't have whatever minifac chip (forget whatever the lore is) that lets you produce more, so you'd be stuck with one or two beaten up fighters with no way to replace them. then again, lore is a kinda shaky place with fighters in my mind (ie why can't one squad of four just keep producing fighters up to 16 and just operate as 4 separate squads on the battlefield? why can you lose fighter squads if an identical ship is currently in its replacement slot? for example, two wings of broadswords, why can you lose one when rebuilding the other?)

I think at the moment it comes down to Alex's designs for surrender balanced against the abuse in the .5 surrender mechanics. I would assume he's gonna take another whack at it, regardless of lore (which should come second to gameplay more often than not anyways)
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JDCollie

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #11 on: April 28, 2014, 11:58:10 AM »

Fighters really should surrender when their parent fleet is annihilated.

I disagree. I mean yes, in theory, but you wouldn't have whatever minifac chip (forget whatever the lore is) that lets you produce more, so you'd be stuck with one or two beaten up fighters with no way to replace them. then again, lore is a kinda shaky place with fighters in my mind (ie why can't one squad of four just keep producing fighters up to 16 and just operate as 4 separate squads on the battlefield? why can you lose fighter squads if an identical ship is currently in its replacement slot? for example, two wings of broadswords, why can you lose one when rebuilding the other?)

I think at the moment it comes down to Alex's designs for surrender balanced against the abuse in the .5 surrender mechanics. I would assume he's gonna take another whack at it, regardless of lore (which should come second to gameplay more often than not anyways)
Well, lore-wise how can a bunch of tiny fighters navigate hyperspace, or even interplanetary space for that matter. They need carriers precisely because they don't carry the drive systems necessary for such travel, allowing more space to be allocated to combat equipment. Or at least, in theory. To build them otherwise doesn't make sense, but game wise, it would suck to not even be able to purchase them unless you have a carrier present in your fleet.

Actually, scratch that. I changed my mind. That's exactly how it should be, and if you lose your carrier, you loose the ability to deploy fighters as well. (You still have the "chip" you mentioned, but the fighters will have 0% combat readiness regardless of available supplies until you get a new carrier.)


Yes, hate me for that one. I don't care; fighters shouldn't be capable of unassisted travel. 
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Vind

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #12 on: April 28, 2014, 01:43:42 PM »

In previous versions fighters needed hangar space to be carried and deployed by the fleet - later hangar space was removed from all ships. Personally i think some stat related to fighter supply and repair must be present on all ships. Single fighter with zero cargo and fuel space makes no sense to travel in system. The whole point of fighter is lightweight weapon platform to intercept and fight quickly and return to carrier vessel for rearmament and refuel afterwards. And right now you cant capture fighters at all -even then you take over enemy carrier by boarding and 3-4 enemy fighter wings retreated from battle. Logically speaking all spare fighters located aboard carrier vessel so why they cant be captured? Whole fighter part of the game not balanced well at the moment. Fighters make no effort to avoid missiles and stray shots and just waste crew in every battle. Maybe redone all small fighters to drones so crew would not be wasted at all and only big fighters like broadswords warthogs and so on will have crew onboard.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2014, 01:48:53 PM by Vind »
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ciago92

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #13 on: April 28, 2014, 02:09:52 PM »

JD: I think it'd be very interesting to require a carrier to use fighters. You can still purchase the fighter's UAC or whatever but you can't build/deploy them until you have a carrier. I think it'd put too much emphasis on protecting carriers with the current balance, but it's definitely something I'd love to see explored by a mod if possible

Vind: I like the idea of capping fighters with carriers, but I don't really care for the smaller fighters becoming drones. We already have drones so that's not doing much for variety.
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kazi

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Re: Return of Surrender Mechanics
« Reply #14 on: April 30, 2014, 01:06:25 AM »

Vind- you and I think alike. I think that capturing fighters when you capture carriers would make a lot of sense. I am also in favor of certain fighters being able to become "drones" (without crew).
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