Proposed 'Quick Fix' for some Combat 'Anomalies'

[Marty Ward]

How about being able to fire then move or move then fire. Until opportunity fire is installed there are to many ways to abuse the system.

[Daynarr]

I think Talenn has explained the reasons why opportunity fire is not good in this game. You can make a decoy ships that will take away the fire from ships and then have the big guns get close and personal. In the game where you can have custom designs that is always the case, and in the game like "Steel Panthers" you can't make decoys.

There are 2 options for opportunity fire:
1) The point-defense type that reacts automatically as the ship moves in range. Decoys can easily divert this type of fire.
2) The type that is used in most tactical games like Jagged Alliance where you get limited control of the unit and the ability to choose its actions (retreat or fire). There are several issues here:
- In order for ship to move, it would have to have movement point left (right now almost all ships use up all their movement points when they can). You will have to make AI wait for the enemy to come in range and then use opportunity fire which means completely rewriting the algorithm AI uses in tactical combat. It is exactly the opposite of the 'simple' and 'easy to fix' solution. It may be a long term solution until all other issues are solved.
- That wouldn't help static units since they can only wait for enemy units to come in range and that puts us back to point-defense type of reaction.
- How do you make AI decide what ship is a real threat in a game where everybody can make custom ships, components, etc. If you make AI see threat in ships with lots of weapons on them, you can use a ship with lots of low-cost weapons with smallest weapon-mounts and use it as a decoy. If you make AI see threat in ships with most powerful weapon on it, you will make a ship with single most powerful weapon and lots of shields and use it as a decoy. If you make AI see threat in ships that have the biggest overall damage potential of all weapons on them, it will completely ignore the weapons that damage weapons, engines or shields only.
In short opportunity fire is no go because you give human much more options to (ab)use AI in this kind of game. There are simply too many options for scripted AI.

If you want to have AI and human on more even grounds in tactical combat, you have to limit the human to do what AI can do. AI can't move-shoot-move at this point and removing this will help make game more interesting. Just like Talenn said this could be a temporal solution until MM makes AI use move-shoot-move tactic efficiently.

[Talenn]

Tenryu:

No probs at all. The reason I posted it here was to elicit feedback. I agree that its not perfect, but it is fix to some of the existing problems. Whether or not it would introduce more problems remains to be seen and is the very reason I want others to consider the permutations.

The long and short range weapons on a ship could be a potential problem. I dont think its anywhere near as bad as the current 'hit and run' or 'missile dance'.

Thanx for the input all.

Talenn

[Tenryu]

quote:

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Originally posted by Daynarr:
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If you want to have AI and human on more even grounds in tactical combat, you have to limit the human to do what AI can do.

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I guess that's the crux of the issue.

Rather then asking MM to limit our options, I'm more in favor of asking them to get the AI working better. Maybe all that's needed for this issue is for the AI to start using decoys also.

I do understand your point though.

[Talenn]

Tenryu:

I also think these changes would benefit player vs player games as well. At the very least it makes it so that 'static' defenses are more worthwhile.

But even if it didnt do so, I think it is a good way to help the AI without giving it 'cheats'. I cant really think of any other good ways to help it vs the 'missile dance'. Even HUMANS cant beat it unless they simply pack their ships with PD weapons or missiles themselves.

I dont see any reasonable way to have the AI modify its ship designs to respond to other's missile/fighters. In the absence of that, I think this would go a long way to helping restore some fight from the AI.

FWIW, I would, of course, prefer the AI to be strengthened to the point where it wouldnt be necessary as well. Regardless, I think this change will add a certain element of thinking to the tactical combat and also on the design table.

Talenn

[Barnacle Bill]

I think the missile dance itself is a lot more realistic than than having to stop after you fire. Again, in real life if you are both faster than your opponent and have longer ranged weapons than you win without getting your hair mussed. Ask Crassus, or anybody who ever fought the Mongols.

As to the reality of the movement system, it is only realistic if you assume Newtonian physics still apply. "Inertialess" drives are pretty common in science fiction.

I don't see the big problem with decoys, either. They cost a lot in the long run, and you have to maintain them, too. It would also not be that hard to program the AI to consider the various ships involved in the combat as well as their ranges in deciding who to use opportunity fire on, perhaps with a small random element to make it more unpredictable.

Another thing which could be done without sacrificing realism, actually increasing it, it to move to a proportional movement system in tactical combat. The idea here is that instead of going the entire turn on an "igo-ugo" basis, the turn is divided into a number of "impulses" equal to the fastest tactical speed the game will support. If a ship has that maximum possible speed, it can move one square every impulse. If it has 1/2 the maximum speed, it can move 1 square every other impulse, etc... A ship that doesn't move when it has the opportunity loses that MP for the turn. Weapons still only fire once per turn (or less, for those with reload times greater than 1 turn). However, any unit can fire in any impulse whether it moved or not. The impulse has two phases, first movement, then fire, and all fire in the same impulse is simultaneous. This will solve the "missile dance" issue in a way that increases realism, rather than decreases it.

[Zanthis]

Hey Bill, think you can convince MM to add weapon arcs and turn modes while your at it?

I do like the impulse idea. Would be neat if impulse-based tactical combat was a Setting (or selected during galaxy creation).

[Talenn]

Barnacle Bill:


Sure, those are all great ideas. I'd wouldnt mind seeing an 'impulse movement system' in the game, but I dont see it happening any time soon. The original goal of the post was 'quick fix', not a complete overhaul of the tactical combat engine. If MM decided to redo combat that way, I'm all for it (except for the drastically increased play time it would entail), but in absence of that, I'd like to see something done to reduce some of the more obvious tactical combat exploits.

FWIW, while the 'missile dance' may be somewhat 'realistic' (if we ignore inertia), it sure as heck doesnt make the game as fun to play. When playing competitively with other humans, people are going to do what it takes to win (and they have every right to, IMO) That causes the game to feel a bit stale when EVERYONE is using missiles and when players are standing off fleets of cruisers with destroyers and frigates.

As I pointed out below, the combat engine has NOTHING to do with realism. It allows the players to engage in a 'chess-like' battle using ships of their own design. It conveys the flavor of space sci-fi conflict. It allows for the use of differing tactics. IMO, thats all it should be doing. If we want a more detailed combat sim, we can go play SFC2 (when they finally patch it enough to be playable, that is...). But I dont think it is within the scope of SE4 to provide a detailed combat engine. What we have (abstract) is fine in most cases, but it has some serious loopholes. I'd just like to see those loopholes closed or reduced.

Talenn

[Lucas]

If the "missile dance" was the only problem, it would probably be just as easy to teach the computer to do it as it would be to implement any of these other ideas. For instance, it seems to me that the "Maximum Range" firing strategy could be tweaked for missile ships so that the computer ends up with ships that start their turns out of firing range, dip in to maximum range, fire, then bob back out. (revert to "Don't get hurt" until a new missile is ready to fire?)

Of course if the object is to get rid of the "dance", as well as the hit and run attacks on bases and satelites, then the solution that would be easiest (not most realistic, just easy) is probably going to be the "Movement point penalty when firing" idea that Talenn proposed at the start of this thread.

Actually, I have to admit that I kind of like the part of the idea that forces large ships to stop moving after they fire, while allowing smaller ships more leeway to dodge around. Of course I'm liable to be a little biased in this regard, I usually like things that let me torment my enemies with fleets of nimble ships that dart here and there too fast for anyone to get a decent lock on.

The difficulty with that is it doesn't really make any sense (no inertia so why should small ships fire any differently than big ones?), and it makes it harder to lay down fire to cover retreats. Not, I suppose, that anything really needs to make that much sense provided it improves the game-play.

If nothing else, the "Movement point penalty when firing" might mix things up a little. It could make smaller hulls useful for a longer period of time (kind of fun).

What if the penalty only applied to missiles? For instance, what if a ship was allowed to zig and zag as much as it wanted provided all it did was fire beam weapons, but it got hit with a movement point penalty for missile type weapons?

That would let people use energy weapons as they do now, but it would still keep the "missile dance" types of moves from being so easy. In this case, a ship with both types of weapons could start its turn in close firing beam weapons, and end its turn by running as far as it can get before firing missiles.

I think this could work provided missiles only deducted movement points when they were there to deduct, but didn't require the ship to have movement points in order to fire.

Opinions?

[Tenryu]

Talenn,

LOL!
I don't really disagree with your points.
If you can get MM to do it.
I'll not stop playing the game.