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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: Sensors  (Read 40119 times)

Alex

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Sensors
« on: April 13, 2015, 01:54:14 PM »

Blog post here.
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ciago92

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2015, 02:09:02 PM »

Yesssssss!!!
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Aeson

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2015, 02:33:22 PM »

Some possible reasons not to run without the transponder on:
- Patrols which detect you are more likely to come by to try to see what's up and may make a more thorough scan than usual (possibly including a physical inspection, bypassing Shielded Cargo Holds?) if you're stopped for inspection.
- Some areas may have a policy of "if it's running without the transponders active, it can be assumed to be a pirate/smuggler and will be treated as such by the prize court" coupled with an open bounty on pirates/smugglers or a "kill on sight" policy for the same.
- If you're caught running without active transponders you'll be fined or lose standing, or perhaps see some of your ships or cargo impounded or confiscated when you arrive at the station.
- Stations in relatively law-abiding areas might refuse docking permission for some amount of time to someone running without an active transponder within some distance of the station.
- If you're caught running without active transponders, you might be more likely to be accused of smuggling and may be more likely to be harassed by patrols.
- Pirates who detect you are more likely to approach. Help isn't coming if it doesn't know you're there, after all, and on top of that someone trying to keep a low profile might want to avoid the attention of the local authorities.
- Friendly fleets in dangerous areas may group up with you if your transponder is on for a 'safety in numbers' deal or as a favor (i.e. I'm a merchant captain well-regarded by the Hegemony and so a couple of cruisers from the local defense fleet comes out to escort me through the pirate-infested fringes of the Corvus system or some such thing), but wouldn't risk approaching an unidentified target and would tend to try to evade approaching unidentified contacts.
- If your transponder is on and you're running low on fuel/supplies, friendly fleets may offer assistance (either freely or with a cost, depending on how friendly and how generous the faction/fleet happens to be with you). Wouldn't risk it for an unidentified contact, though, and you wouldn't know about the emergency status of the unidentified contact, either. Same kind of deal for overburdened with cargo/fuel/crew or badly damaged after a battle - friendly fleets in the area might come by to help out if your transponder is broadcasting, but wouldn't for an unknown contact.
- If you ever decide to allow fleets to aid one another during battles, then perhaps only fleets with active transponders can receive assistance.
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Andrius227

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2015, 02:37:33 PM »

Nice. I like the sensors idea. I always thought seeing every fleet in the star system was overpowered.
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Thaago

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2015, 02:39:47 PM »

Very exciting!

One thought: the speed that a fleet is traveling could effect its sensor profile. Or, more simply, staying still with engines off could give a bonus to both. This would allow for ambush mechanics to work really nicely!
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xenoargh

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2015, 02:41:18 PM »

Thought:

Reducing a fleet's Burn Speed should also drop the visibility quite a lot.  So a Pirate fleet, wanting to ambush, will be transponder off, not moving, waiting near a trade lane, and very hard to spot until it's too late.  Ambush predator mechanics.  Don't worry about this making things "too hard" for newbies; if that's a serious problem, simply make Corvus not spawn big Pirate fleets or something.

It'll also make player movement a lot more interesting, in the sense that they can play cat and mouse with the AI.

Battles should also have a visible marker on the map that fades with time, to tell the player where Things Have Happened lately.  It'd be really cool if players occasionally came upon wrecked fleets from these fights- imagine the player going there to strip them of anything valuable and then suddenly getting popped by a Pirate- that kind of thing really makes a game work, by creating the tension that is largely absent from travel right now.

I'd also really suggest that, since fleets no longer need to be visible, that fleet activities in other Systems be greatly abstracted, so that memory loads can finally be dropped to something like where I got them in Vacuum.  Players will never know a thing, other than not having big mods run out of RAM.
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Wyvern

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2015, 02:43:09 PM »

Ooh, transponders should tie in nicely with any sort of Letter-of-Marquee system; if you're running a transponder that says "Mercenary unit currently under hire by the Hegemony", then yeah, it's harder to hunt down Tri-Tachyon merchant fleets - but any you do hunt down won't cause TT to hold a grudge against you, personally.  As long as that transponder code was on record, at least.
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Cycerin

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2015, 02:49:16 PM »

Man, hard work lately huh? The highlights just keep coming.

Those buttons, I assume, hint to some kinda functionality around active and passive sensor strategies, as well as reduced and max burn, both impacting visibility.
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Tartiflette

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2015, 02:56:45 PM »

I was about to make suggestions for running with transponder on, but Aeson pretty much covered all of them so +1 to everything.

Since you are revamping the fleets AI, may I suggest also tackling the "Burn Speed is everything" problem?
I think moving a bit away from a speed capped traveling and more toward an acceleration based one would do wonders to limit the travel tedium. It would allow larger fleets to catch small ones if they can reach high speed before being detected, or on the contrary evade one that is too fast and have to decelerate before coming back... It could also be visually more majestic, seeing fleets flying along large parabolas. And the areas where all fleets decelerate like near markets or wormholes would be the predictable concentration point you where talking about.

Granted a pure acceleration system would probably be too difficult to pilot efficiently (unless you sunk way too many hours in KSP) but maybe there is a way to find a middle ground with a high maximum common speed? Also that would imply more UI to see your minimal stopping distance.
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Dri

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #9 on: April 13, 2015, 03:12:34 PM »

How are the Sensors going to be worked into characters skills?

Actually, I can guess pretty well about skills that boost range... but what aptitude category is it gonna fall into? Makes the most sense to go into Technology but damn, thats an already filled out aptitude currently! Or is the rumor true that all 4 of the aptitudes will have 10+ skills when all is said and done?
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Solinarius

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2015, 03:20:00 PM »

Aaah! This sounds very promising, Alex. I can't wait for more details :D.

With this new development, having surefire reputation hits when you attack a faction seems out-of-line. Perhaps this would allow for jamming systems to come into play? After all, if no one hears your scream in space, so to speak, then there's no crime to report. This would do particularly well for players who choose to smuggle or pirate.

Jamming should not be end-all insurance against detection from other fleets, however. Say, for instance, you battle with a Hegemony picket and you win said battle. Well, depending on how long it took, the battle resolution "time" on the campaign map could take a few seconds and that was just long enough for a Hegemony detachment to come within visual range. This could be one reason to try to end battles quickly because you don't want to be caught by reinforcements.

Another scenario: you win the battle, but one among the picket managed to retreat. With the current setup, you will most certainly be reported because they get that Burn Speed boost. Speaking of which, what will become of the boost after the campaign revamp?
« Last Edit: April 13, 2015, 03:22:03 PM by Solinarius »
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Megas

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #11 on: April 13, 2015, 03:28:53 PM »

Unidentified fleet could be identified as pirate by that red Hound.  So far, only pirates pilot red Hounds.

How would factions trying to conceal their origin and allegience not give themselves away if they use faction-specific ships?  That is, if only one faction is known to use a given ship, then as soon as you see that ship in an "unidentified fleet", you know the allegiance of that fleet and can guess what they are up to.
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Alex

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #12 on: April 13, 2015, 03:33:39 PM »

Spoiler
Some possible reasons not to run without the transponder on:
- Patrols which detect you are more likely to come by to try to see what's up and may make a more thorough scan than usual (possibly including a physical inspection, bypassing Shielded Cargo Holds?) if you're stopped for inspection.
- Some areas may have a policy of "if it's running without the transponders active, it can be assumed to be a pirate/smuggler and will be treated as such by the prize court" coupled with an open bounty on pirates/smugglers or a "kill on sight" policy for the same.
- If you're caught running without active transponders you'll be fined or lose standing, or perhaps see some of your ships or cargo impounded or confiscated when you arrive at the station.
- Stations in relatively law-abiding areas might refuse docking permission for some amount of time to someone running without an active transponder within some distance of the station.
- If you're caught running without active transponders, you might be more likely to be accused of smuggling and may be more likely to be harassed by patrols.
- Pirates who detect you are more likely to approach. Help isn't coming if it doesn't know you're there, after all, and on top of that someone trying to keep a low profile might want to avoid the attention of the local authorities.
- Friendly fleets in dangerous areas may group up with you if your transponder is on for a 'safety in numbers' deal or as a favor (i.e. I'm a merchant captain well-regarded by the Hegemony and so a couple of cruisers from the local defense fleet comes out to escort me through the pirate-infested fringes of the Corvus system or some such thing), but wouldn't risk approaching an unidentified target and would tend to try to evade approaching unidentified contacts.
- If your transponder is on and you're running low on fuel/supplies, friendly fleets may offer assistance (either freely or with a cost, depending on how friendly and how generous the faction/fleet happens to be with you). Wouldn't risk it for an unidentified contact, though, and you wouldn't know about the emergency status of the unidentified contact, either. Same kind of deal for overburdened with cargo/fuel/crew or badly damaged after a battle - friendly fleets in the area might come by to help out if your transponder is broadcasting, but wouldn't for an unknown contact.
- If you ever decide to allow fleets to aid one another during battles, then perhaps only fleets with active transponders can receive assistance.
[close]

Interesting ideas all, nice. Some I was already thinking about, and some new ones too!

One thought: the speed that a fleet is traveling could effect its sensor profile. Or, more simply, staying still with engines off could give a bonus to both. This would allow for ambush mechanics to work really nicely!
Reducing a fleet's Burn Speed should also drop the visibility quite a lot.  So a Pirate fleet, wanting to ambush, will be transponder off, not moving, waiting near a trade lane, and very hard to spot until it's too late.  Ambush predator mechanics.  Don't worry about this making things "too hard" for newbies; if that's a serious problem, simply make Corvus not spawn big Pirate fleets or something.

There may or may not be a button that may or may not do this and it may or may not be in the last image in the blog post.


It'll also make player movement a lot more interesting, in the sense that they can play cat and mouse with the AI.

Yep, that sort of thing is what I'm looking at right now.

Battles should also have a visible marker on the map that fades with time, to tell the player where Things Have Happened lately.  It'd be really cool if players occasionally came upon wrecked fleets from these fights- imagine the player going there to strip them of anything valuable and then suddenly getting popped by a Pirate- that kind of thing really makes a game work, by creating the tension that is largely absent from travel right now.

Yeah, I'd *love* to get that in the game. The idea of a salvage operation being interrupted by pirates is just so freakin' cool.

I'd also really suggest that, since fleets no longer need to be visible, that fleet activities in other Systems be greatly abstracted, so that memory loads can finally be dropped to something like where I got them in Vacuum.  Players will never know a thing, other than not having big mods run out of RAM.

Thinking about that, too. I did run a quick experiment of removing all fleets from the game (well, rather, not spawning them at all) and it only cut savefile size down by 25% or so. So it's probably not worth it for memory reasons, but might be for performance. I'll definitely need to do another round of optimizing during this release.

Ooh, transponders should tie in nicely with any sort of Letter-of-Marquee system; if you're running a transponder that says "Mercenary unit currently under hire by the Hegemony", then yeah, it's harder to hunt down Tri-Tachyon merchant fleets - but any you do hunt down won't cause TT to hold a grudge against you, personally.  As long as that transponder code was on record, at least.

Hmm, yeah. One tricky thing about transponders is going to be how to handle toggling them on and off. That is, if you just, like, turn your transponder on just before a patrol talks to you, that shouldn't count as it being on the whole time.


Man, hard work lately huh? The highlights just keep coming.

A bit of that, but also just a lot of things coming together in a way that makes the design a lot easier. Sort of like, if you've put a bunch of puzzle pieces together, you know the shape of the missing piece even if you don't have it. So it's less thinking about how to do something and more just doing it. Kind of back to "thinking about stuff" mode for revamping fleet AI, though - that one's a tough one and I want to get it right.


Since you are revamping the fleets AI, may I suggest also tackling the "Burn Speed is everything" problem?
I think moving a bit away from a speed capped traveling and more toward an acceleration based one would do wonders to limit the travel tedium. It would allow larger fleets to catch small ones if they can reach high speed before being detected, or on the contrary evade one that is too fast and have to decelerate before coming back... It could also be visually more majestic, seeing fleets flying along large parabolas. And the areas where all fleets decelerate like near markets or wormholes would be the predictable concentration point you where talking about.

Granted a pure acceleration system would probably be too difficult to pilot efficiently (unless you sunk way too many hours in KSP) but maybe there is a way to find a middle ground with a high maximum common speed? Also that would imply more UI to see your minimal stopping distance.

Yeah, I'm experimenting with some things there, but I'll save talking about them until the next post, by which point I might have something more interesting to say than "hmm, yes, this sounds interesting, but also presents some potential problems". I will say I'm hesitant to adopt a too-large "accelerate to top speed" time; that just doesn't go well, for the reasons you point out.


How are the Sensors going to be worked into characters skills?

Right now, probably not at all. The skill revamp is slowly taking shape in my head, but I don't want to tackle it until industry, and I'm hesitant to add more skills that would just need to be revamped.

Actually, I can guess pretty well about skills that boost range... but what aptitude category is it gonna fall into? Makes the most sense to go into Technology but damn, thats an already filled out aptitude currently! Or is the rumor true that all 4 of the aptitudes will have 10+ skills when all is said and done?

Probably tech, yeah, although I could see it go under industry as well if it's framed as something exploration-related.

I don't know about the rumor, but I'd say that ~10 skills for every aptitude sounds good ultimately. I wouldn't want to go over that, and some might get a few less, but we'll see. Don't want filler skills just to pad the count, you know?


(Gah, can I ever post this? Keep getting the "a new reply has been posted" thing every time!)


With this new development, having surefire reputation hits when you attack a faction seems out-of-line. Perhaps this would allow for jamming systems to come into play? After all, if no one hears your scream in space, so to speak, then there's no crime to report. This would do particularly well for players who choose to smuggle or pirate.

Jamming should not be end-all insurance against detection from other fleets, however. Say, for instance, you battle with a Hegemony picket and you win said battle. Well, depending on how long it took, the battle resolution "time" on the campaign map could take a few seconds and that was just long enough for a Hegemony detachment to come within visual range. This could be one reason to try to end battles quickly because you don't want to be caught by reinforcements.

Another scenario: you win the battle, but one among the picket managed to retreat. With the current setup, you will most certainly be reported because they get that Burn Speed boost. Speaking of which, what will become of the boost after the campaign revamp?

I've been thinking about this, and I think this is an area where realism isn't going to fly, really. I mean, what would "really" happen is an attack on a faction patrol would get thoroughly investigated, there'd be blackboxes, communications sent (prior to any jamming - a constant feed to HQ or some such), crews talking carelessly, etc. It's hard to imagine that one would ever get away with anything inside a populated system.

Something like "transponder on = full rep impact", "transponder off = incremental impact" has the virtue of simplicity. I do like the idea of jammers/distress calls/etc, though. Might work them in if they seem necessary, but at the same time, I don't want to overcomplicate things, either.

The idea that if a ship manages to get away, there's a full reputation impact, I find troublesome. It implies that you kill off all survivors, which doesn't make narrative sense in, I would say, most cases. It also paints the player and the entirety of their crew in a certain light. If it was an option "e.g. kill all survivors after the battle, yes or no", that's kind of weird as well, especially if it's incentivized by gameplay. I don't particularly want to go there, especially not willy-nilly.


Unidentified fleet could be identified as pirate by that red Hound.  So far, only pirates pilot red Hounds.

How would factions trying to conceal their origin and allegience not give themselves away if they use faction-specific ships?  That is, if only one faction is known to use a given ship, then as soon as you see that ship in an "unidentified fleet", you know the allegiance of that fleet and can guess what they are up to.

Yeah, that's true, though I'm not sure it's a problem. It's a little bonus for an experienced player that has learned the game.

Might end up using a custom sprite that only conveys the size and not the actual ship, though, although you can see them in the campaign view in addition to the tooltip anyway. On the other hand, you might not know whether the pirate fleet is currently pirate, or if it's still in "pretending to be a mercenary" mode.
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Dri

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #13 on: April 13, 2015, 04:17:03 PM »

Wowza, thanks for all the answers, Alex.

What ship currently has the best sensor strength for it's size? I'm going to guess and say the Apogee! Will we see a few more ships rocking a sort of built-in "Advanced Sensor Suite" hull mod? Or if not built-in I'm sure they'll be at least some sort of hull mod related to the new sensor mechanics. ;)
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Alex

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Re: Sensors
« Reply #14 on: April 13, 2015, 04:23:13 PM »

Yep, the Omen and the Apogee.

Actually, sensor strength and profile aren't an explicit stat... well, they are, but it's not super-exposed to the player - i.e. it's not in the ship tooltip, but there will be a breakdown in the UI indicator for sensor strength/profile indicators.

The reason is that it's based on hull size, and is uniform, so it's not a stat where there are smaller differences that need to be called out, the way there are, for example, in flux dissipation or capacity.

Where there *are* differences (e.g. Omen, Apogee) they're called out to the player (and mechanically applied) via built-in hullmods.

So, we've got (names tentative):
High Resolution Sensors (+sensor strength, Omen, Apogee)
Civilian-grade Hull (+sensor profile, -strength, civ ships)
Phase Field (-sensor profile, phase ships)

There are all built-ins, and if a ship doesn't have any of those, then its sensor profile/strength use default values for its size.

There's a possibility for new hullmods around these eventually, or for effects relating to these stats on existing hullmods. For example, I'm thinking about removing the cargo penalty and adding a sensor profile boost to Augmented Engines.
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