Attack Range and Speed for combat

[yandonman]

Attack Range and Speed for combat
In response to this post

Goals of this design:

• Until there is visual representation of ship combat that can express distance and speed better, keep it dirt simple. Unless there is a compelling case, explain it away as the 'chaos of combat'.
• Make the result of ranged combat reasonably expected.
• For simplicity, player should not have to look up any ship design in the 'pedia to know the relevant combat information.
• Range/Speed should have a unique value in combat (different from weapons/hull/shields and stealth/detection).
• Range/Speed should be complimentary to other combat aspects (currently weapons/hull/shields and stealth/detection).
• Have siege units, similar to StarCraft's tank, that have very long range.
• Have siege units that have a minimum firing range, which makes them susceptible to shorter range fire.
• For simplicity, speed is relative.
• For simplicity, use existing starlane speed for combat speed (code has these as distinct values (m_battle_speed vs m_starlane_speed), but we already have a speed stat on the ship/fleet summary UI)
• Don't deviate from existing FO design as much as possible.
• Require as little code change as possible. Ideally, changes would be restricted to CombatSystem.cpp and hull definitions.

NOTE: Stealth gets a buff from this design (see below)
OTHER NOTE: In reviewing the code, there are existing pieces of code and design that this would utilize, which makes me think that this would be inline with long term designs - in so much as there is no visualization yet.


Attack Ranges:
Give hulls an attack range. Available attack ranges are as follows:

• Very Short Range (VSR)
• Short Range (SR)
• Medium Range (MR)
• Long Range (LR)
• Very Long Range (VLR)

(existing code has several variables for storing min/max weapons range, m_min_weapon_range & m_max_weapon_range, that would likely be the natural place to store these values. technically a VLR ship is really a m_min_weapon_range = MEDIUM_RANGE, m_max_weapon_range = VERY_LONG_RANGE)


Weapon Range in Combat:
Weapon ranges would translate to 5 "phases" of combat (planets get to fire in every phase*). This represents and models the benefits and drawbacks of range. This replaces the old N combat turns per attacker mechanism.**
1. VLR
2. VLR, LR
3. VLR*, LR, MR
4. LR, MR, SR
5. MR, SR, VSR***

** While this replaces the old 3 x NumShip mechanism, most range classes of ships still get 3 combat turns.
*** Phase 5 could repeat as many times as necessary to ensure that there are always at least 3 phases of combat, which would make the duration of battles similar to the current 3 x NumShips mechanism.
*** Phase 5 could be modified to have N combat turns, depending how powerful we want to make MR, SR and VSR ships relative to the other ships. Have they "broken through the line" and are free to run amonk, or have they spent all of their energy/fuel(!) getting to this phase of the fight?
(!) And here is where fuel could become relevant to combat, taking 1 unit of fuel to move from one phase of combat to the next. Combat would end when all targets are destroyed or no ships have any fuel.


* Planets
Existing code has planet defense as PC_SHORT_RANGE. I would almost recommend that planets get Long Range with no VSR penalty (min=Very Short Range, max=Long Range). This would allow for VLR ships to "siege" a planet - attacking without taking damage. The extra benefit to VLRs ships might suggest nerfing VLRs by taking them out of phase 3 firing. But this seems to be getting into too-much-code-change territory



An Example:
1 Very Long Range (VLR) vs 5 Very Short Range (VSR). (equal in every other way)
Old way: 6 ships x 3 "combat duration" = max: 18 combat turns.
New way: between 5-8 combat turns

1. VLR - 1 VLR ships = 1 VLR only discharge of shots
2. VLR, LR - 1 VLR ships = 1 VLR only discharge of shots
3. VLR, LR, MR - 1 VLR ships = 1 VLR only discharge of shots
4. LR, MR, SR - <nothing here: skip>
5. MR, SR, VSR - 5 VSR ships* = 5* VSR only shots
*minus any destroyed

In this case, if one shot equals one kill (and all ships have 1 weapon) the results would be 2 Very Short Range ships left.

UI Changes:

• New range icon in fleet summary panel. Value would be averaged (similar to how shields are now). Value would be expressed as one of "VLR", "Long", "Med", "Short", "VSR".
• New range icon in ship summary panel. Value would be expressed as one of "VLR", "Long", "Med", "Short", "VSR".
• The format of the combat report would change as follows*:

Combat at Shaula on turn 199:

Ships engage at Very Long Range
Round 1: A attacks B and does 38 damage
Round 2: C attacks D and does 15 damage

Ships engage at Long to Very Long Range
Round 3: E attacks F and does 38 damage
Round 4: G attacks H and does 15 damage

Ships engage at Medium to Very Long Range
Round 5: I attacks J and does 38 damage, destroying target
Round 6: K attacks L and does 15 damage

Ships engage at Short to Long Range
Round 7: M attacks N and does 38 damage
Round 8: O attacks P and does 15 damage, destroying target

Ships engage at Very Short to Medium Range
Round 9: Q attacks R and does 38 damage
Round 10: S attacks T and does 15 damage

* fleet compositions ignored for the purpose of showing format.

[yandonman]

Speed:
(technically could be implemented independently)

Take the average speed of each opposing force. Per ship, every 50* speed advantage over the enemy's average speed, add one combat phase to the available combat phases for that ship. This models** how a 'faster' Short range ship can bridge the gap and engage quicker or how a Long range ship could keep it's distance.

* Specific speed number open to discussion.
** One could argue that this does not model speed vs range very well, as technically a VLR vs a Short ranged ship of equal speed should be able to keep its distance indefinately. However, Long range or Very Long Range could be concieved to require a pause to line up or fire their weapons, which allows oncoming ships to gain on them. Or "combat is chaos". A few other questionable scenarios exist, but I am content to leave it as it is.

Combat phases to add to a ship of a specific range due to speed advantage, in order.

• Very Short Range (VSR) - phase 4, phase 3, phase 2, phase 1
• Short Range (SR) - phase 3, phase 2, phase 1
• Medium Range (MR) - phase 2, phase 1
• Long Range (LR) - phase 1, phase 5
• Very Long Range (VLR) - phase 4, phase 5

For example: A VSR ship with multiple engine tech, giving it a speed of 150 would get one additional phase to fire on a Long Range ship with speed of 95. (even though the speed advantage here is technically 55, it's only one 'unit' of '50 speed advantage' so only one additional phase of combat is added.

[yandonman]

Stealth Buff (aka: the "stealth ambush")
This combat system will give a combat buff to stealth. Short Range ships with stealth superior to the detection of Very Long Range ships they are engaging, will come out of combat unmolested because the VLR ships must see the stealthed ships before they can fire, and the SR ships won't fire until they are within range, which is below the minimum range of the VLR ships.

The combat report would look like this:

"Combat at Shaula on turn 199:

Ships engage at Very Long Range
Round 1: No visible targets.

Ships engage at Long to Very Long Range
Round 2: No visible targets.

Ships engage at Medium to Very Long Range
Round 3: No visible targets.

Ships engage at Short to Long Range
Round 4: M attacks A and does 38 damage

Ships engage at Very Short to Medium Range
Round 5: M attacks B and does 15 damage"*

* fleet compositions ignored for the purpose of showing format.
** Also, the combat window would play the Jaws "duh-nuh..." sound for each "No visible targets" round.


Other consequences:

• Stealth ship parts get a relative buff due to stealth being more relevant in combat due to the "stealth ambush" potential.
• The rarely used Distortion Modulator, -20 stealth to everything in the same location, would get a relative buff due to the "stealth ambush" potential.
• Fleets would require more variety, mixing short ranged with long ranged ships to cover the weaknesses in both.
• Speed tech and hull speed would become more relevant due to the ability to influence a ship's ability to fire in a certain combat phase.
• Internal slots, currently housing engine, stealth and detection parts, would get more competitive as the value of those ship parts increase due to their relevance in combat.
• Hull design, balance and differentiation would get a large boon, as attack range is orthogonal to other attributes. For example, Organic ships might have shorter ranged ships relative to Robotic ships. The differentiation between the Fractal and the Quantum ship could be that the Fractal is a Short Ranged ship and the Quantum is a Long Range ship. Etc.

[yandonman]

Additional examples

Use Case: 1 VLR vs 15 VSR. (equal in every other way)
Old way: 16 ships x 3 "combat duration" = max: 48 combat turns.
New way: = between 15-18 combat turns

1. VLR - 1 VLR ships = 1 VLR only shots
2. VLR, LR - 1 VLR ships = 1 VLR only shots
3. VLR, LR, MR - 1 VLR ships = 1 VLR only shots
4. LR, MR, SR - <nothing here: skip>
5. MR, SR, VSR - 15* VSR ships = 15* VSR only shots
*minus any destroyed

Use Case: 2 VLR vs 15 VSR. (equal in every other way)
Old way: 17 ships x 3 "combat duration" = max: 51 combat turns.
New way: = between 15-21 combat turns

1. VLR - 2 VLR ships = 2 VLR only shots
2. VLR, LR - 2 VLR ships = 2 VLR only shots
3. VLR, LR, MR - 2 VLR ships = 2 VLR only shots
4. LR, MR, SR - <nothing here: skip>
5. MR, SR, VSR - 15* VSR ships = 15* VSR only shots
*minus any destroyed


Use Case: 2 LRs vs 2 MRs (equal in every other way)
Old way: 4 ships x 3 "combat duration" = 12 combat turns.
New way: = between 2-12 combat turns

1. VLR - <nothing here: skip>
2. VLR, LR - 2 LR ships = 2 LR only shots
3. VLR, LR, MR - 2 LR, 2* MR ships = all 4* ships discharging shots.
4. LR, MR, SR - 2* LR, 2* MR ships = all 4* ships discharging shots.
5. MR, SR, VSR - 2* MR ships = 2* MR only shots
*minus any destroyed

[shawndream]

1 unit of fuel between each phase seems out of order. Current fuel supplies would dictate most ships grind to a halt instead of closing to attack. Requiring a single fuel per TURN active in combat, or 0.1 per phase seems more in line with normal usage. (And provides strong fuel/supply advantage). Also I would make the fuel only go away if they are actively attacking, charging ships to do nothing seems wrong to me.

I'm not a big fan of putting range on the hull. You use it cleverly by adding combat rounds at their favored ranges based on speed, but I feel there are already too many hulls complicating design, and adding additional variables will just encourage more. Also I feel the same hull could do either depending on equipment. Granted, displaying range visually could be tough with mixed weaponry. A small bar graph could do it though, showing their attack values at each range (Compared to 100%). The icon for this could be a red dot with circles fading to blue.

Also making ships completely helpless at certain ranges seems out of whack to me. The most I would go is 50% chance of skipping a turn during ranges not optomized (or 25% per category out of range). Note that this can be done on a per-weapon basis as well. Note that Universal weapons/planets/ships being 75% in all ranges seems like a big enough boost over the norm.

As for combat speed, it seems both simpler and more flexible to give ships a flat damage modifier for speed (5% per 10 over/under 100), representing their ability to get more/more effective attack angles. This would also allow for easy display of attack strength (rolled in like racial bonus).

Giving ships a single speed is simpler, but I think the default should generally be that larger ships have higher starlane speed, but lower battle speed, and vice versa for smaller ships. This gives a reason to keep mixed fleets, as little fighters are easy to vaporize, but punch harder for their cost.

As for stealth, only making it useful for close range fighters seems wrong to me. What about snipers? I would recommend instead that stealth and detection be prioritized more as a universal combat buffs. A more stealthy ship is harder to track and fire upon in general, and one that is an open book telegraphs it's intentions for easy countering. (I had a lot more thoughts on stealth in one of Adamant's word scramble threads).

As I suggested speed be a purely offensive bonus, perhaps stealth could be purely defensive. Altering flat damage received (after shield) by 5% per 10 difference between stealth and detection.

It seems a bit pre-emptive to put mechanics on all these before we have a plan for combat control, but I guess at least they will become placeholder values to balance, and give us something to try to keep tactical combat balanced around.

[yandonman]

Fuel was only mentioned in passing; not proposing implementing it at this time.

[OllyG]

As for stealth, only making it useful for close range fighters seems wrong to me. What about snipers? I would recommend instead that stealth and detection be prioritized more as a universal combat buffs.

A suggestion;
When a ship fires it looses it's stealth. In a turn it doesn't fire it regains it's stealth at the end of that turn. Snipers can be targeted by other snipers or slightly shorter range ships which can fire the next turn. if no ships can see each other to fire no combat would occur anyway. The fact that each range of ship fires in more than one phase means that if you have the correct range of ship you will loose one opportunity to fire, but if the first shot doesn't kill you, you will get to shoot back.
Also this way some kind of superior stealth which reactivates more quickly could be researched - or a ship part added. Another technology which reduced stealth reactivation times could also be added.

A nebula type which reduces stealth could be good - there is one for shields already. Should be able to research technologies that replicate the nebula for a system.

I'm not a big fan of putting range on the hull. You use it cleverly by adding combat rounds at their favored ranges based on speed, but I feel there are already too many hulls complicating design, and adding additional variables will just encourage more. Also I feel the same hull could do either depending on equipment. Granted, displaying range visually could be tough with mixed weaponry. A small bar graph could do it though, showing their attack values at each range (Compared to 100%). The icon for this could be a red dot with circles fading to blue.

Something simple is better with each ship just having one range, otherwise with a large fleet it would take a while to see what range everything is - also the stealth thing seems better with a ship at a single range. Also if you have to look really closely at each enemy fleet it could get very time-consuming. If the range is not based on hull it should be chosen during the design in some way (by equipment or choice) and be obvious to anyone looking at an enemy fleet (which isn't stealthed!)

Also on a side note - I don't think FreeOrion should have 3D realtime combat. It will slow the game way too much. Continued design advancement of the current system is a better idea.

[shawndream]

I'm not a big fan of putting range on the hull. You use it cleverly by adding combat rounds at their favored ranges based on speed, but I feel there are already too many hulls complicating design, and adding additional variables will just encourage more. Also I feel the same hull could do either depending on equipment. Granted, displaying range visually could be tough with mixed weaponry. A small bar graph could do it though, showing their attack values at each range (Compared to 100%). The icon for this could be a red dot with circles fading to blue.

Something simple is better with each ship just having one range, otherwise with a large fleet it would take a while to see what range everything is - also the stealth thing seems better with a ship at a single range. Also if you have to look really closely at each enemy fleet it could get very time-consuming. If the range is not based on hull it should be chosen during the design in some way (by equipment or choice) and be obvious to anyone looking at an enemy fleet (which isn't stealthed!)

Also on a side note - I don't think FreeOrion should have 3D realtime combat. It will slow the game way too much. Continued design advancement of the current system is a better idea.

Ah! But if you don't design the ship UI to show strength at different ranges, how will you show it at a glance for a whole fleet (made up of many ships of different ranges). Better to make a good range strength indicator, and use it for both ships and fleets alike. I described briefly my plan before, I'll do a mockup and more detail in a bit. Although I must say I am unsold on range as a useful tactic for the complications in display it brings.

Agree about realtime combat. Turn based games should be turn based, full stop. I would recommend that combat take place in at most 10 rounds (of interaction), where every player issues orders at the same time, and it is reasonable to let the computer manage your tactics.

[shawndream]

OK, more info on range designs (note - this is not an endorsement of range as a tactical addition, I'm still lukewarm on the concept).

As I mentioned, a fleet would always need a way to summarize at a glance it's status in regards to mixed long range, short ranged weaponry or ships within it. My proposed mechanism for this (which also works for ships with mixed weaponry) is a tiny bar chart right next to the damage number of the ship/fleet.

Lets say that the fleet/ship includes 30 damage of long range weapons, 20 medium range, and 10 short range.

Let's further assume (for simplicity sake) that weapons have 50% miss chance out of their preferred range.

So at long range this fleet does 30, plus 20*0.5, plus 10*0.5 or 45 damage.

At Medium range this fleet does 30*0.5, plus 20, plus 10*0.5 or 40 damage.

At Short range this fleet does 30*0.5, plus 20*0.5, plus 10 or 35 damage.

You would display the maximum damage of 45 on the fleet, and next to that display a tiny bar 3 bar chart.

The first bar for long range (the first phase of combat) would be 45/45 or full height.
The second bar for medium range would be 40/45 or a bit lower
The third bar would be 30/45 or 2/3rds of the height of the first bar.

Now lets say there are two other ships/fleets at this location.

One displays max damage of 40 but is short range focused entirely (bar reads 50%, 50%, 100%)

The other is 40, but purely medium range (bar reads 50%, 100%, 50%)

The readout at the top summarizing all the fleets in this location (or ships in this fleet) is easy to calculate.

At long range the ships do 45+20+20 or 85 damage
At medium range the ships do 40+20+40 or 100 damage
At short range the ships do 30+40+20 or 90 damage

The overfleet would be marked as 100 damage, with a bar chart reading 85%, 100%, 90%

You can see how the tactical strength of ships and fleets are easy to gauge fairly accurately at a glance.

[Geoff the Medio]

I'd be most likely to support having just two ranges for ship weapons: long and short. Each range could have a weapon strength icon and number on ship and fleet info panels.

[yandonman]

speed be a purely offensive bonus, perhaps stealth could be purely defensive. Altering flat damage received (after shield) by 5% per 10 difference between stealth and detection.

Geoff has already (mostly) rejected the idea of non weapons systems adding bonuses to the weapons system at combat time, which something like comparing one ship's stealth vs another ship's detection would be at. I agree with Geoff's stance on this. (see here)

Something simple is better with each ship just having one range, otherwise with a large fleet it would take a while to see what range everything is ... so if you have to look really closely at each enemy fleet it could get very time-consuming

I don't have the authority to say this is correct, but it does a good job of summarizing the downfall of not keeping everything in a small set of high level stats. (mentioned somewhat here)

more info on range designs

I definitely appreciate the additional input/thought. I would love to see several screen shots of variations of your ideas.

There's no miss chance (I don't feel it's needed, Geoff has also discouraged this), so the visualization and summarization could be even simpler. One suggestion, just count the number of each max range for the chart - it'll get the idea across.

Some other thought: If I have 100 ships, do I really need to know down to the last ship how many of each I have? (No) Would just seeing the predominant range of ship be sufficient? (Maybe)

Again, I'm assuming one range per ship design. There's nothing stopping us from re-considering this later.

The fleet and ship summary panels are also getting crowded. Keeping that in mind, some brainstorming on presenting ship range: Modify the ship icon, modify the weapons icon, add the range indicator, like "(VLR)", to the end of the ship name.

snipers, siegers and bears, oh my / [ship roles in general]

(IMHO) Hulls should not be given roles. Players should give roles to hulls when they equip them (I think I read that somewhere in the FO design philosophy). What is a sniper in space combat? A lightly armored, high powered, very long range unit with stealth? This system, in tandem with existing ship parts, would allow the player to build that.

[on stealth only benefiting short range]

Just because I can think of a good use for stealth on a short range ship, doesn't mean that there isn't a good use for stealth on a long range ship.

[yandonman]

Here is a draft of some changes needed in CombatSystem.cpp/.h. It compiles, but there's no testing as of yet. The extra indention of the new enclosing for loop will make it difficult to see the changes within the original combat for loop, so I have added a "_nice_diff_format.patch" that incorrectly indents the new for loop, but makes it easier to see what changed without all of the superfluous white space changes.

(code assumes 5 ranges)

[Vezzra]

I'd be most likely to support having just two ranges for ship weapons: long and short.

That's very similar to what has been proposed in the Weapon Range section of the 0.4 design pad (with the exception of point defence). I think the concepts presented there are very sound and I've been hoping that we would stick to these design decisions in the long run.

[yandonman]

I'd be most likely to support having just two ranges for ship weapons: long and short.

That's very similar to what has been proposed in the Weapon Range section of the 0.4 design pad (with the exception of point defence). I think the concepts presented there are very sound and I've been hoping that we would stick to these design decisions in the long run.

(and I'm certain I've ready that page, though not in a long while, so "my" idea probably was plenty seeded with the info there - see, the wiki worked - it steered the direction of design)

The design pad has four ranges (Long, Short, Point Defense and Fighters). It attributes the range to the ship (aka: hull), not to individual weapons.

"I'd be most likely to support having just two ranges for ship weapons" - @Geoff, do you really mean individual weapons or do you mean a range value for the whole ship?

I think I'd like to see at least three ranges. Having at least three ranges gives ship designs at least two counters for dealing with long range ships. Option 1) slug it out with a high armored medium ranged ship (mediums will likely be balanced with more slots vs a long range) or Option 2) fly in under the radar, get in under the long range's minimum firing distance and run amok. (aka: zerglings on tanks)

I had an iteration of Attack Range that tried to deal with distance that did not translate well to the current text based combat summary, hence the simplification to one-attack-range = one-combat-phase-closer. I wouldn't suggest trying to convey actual distances (5 AU vs 15 AU) in the current text combat summary.

[Vezzra]

The design pad has four ranges (Long, Short, Point Defense and Fighters). It attributes the range to the ship (aka: hull), not to individual weapons.

As far as I understand the design pad, weapon ranges are bound to "weapon delivery systems", not hull types:

Combat balance is organized primarily around different types of weapon delivery systems: Point Defense (PD), Short Range (SR), Long Range (LR), and Fighters.

Hulls are discussed in a different section, so I'm sure that weapon range is meant to be a property of weapon ship parts, not hulls. Regarding fighters, as far as weapon ranges are concerned, they have the same range as point defence weapons:

...

• Point Defence (PD) ships can shoot about 3 AU
• Fighters can shoot about 3 AU

...
Keeping fighter range and PD range roughly equal should ensure fighters can't shoot past PD to hit something behind the PD, but that fighters can get fairly close to the PD, and can shoot back at it without too much difficulty.

Meaning when speaking in terms of weapon ranges, fighters = PD.

Anyway, I don't like the idea of making weapon range a property of the hull types at all - that's horribly counter-intuitive. If you do that, you'll either end up with weapons being SR/LR depending on what hull you put them (which is very confusing, that way a typical short range laser suddenly might outrange a long range missile system), or you'll have to restrict which weapons you can put on which hull (please, let us not go down that road, that kind of counters the idea of being able to customize hulls with parts).