Troop Drops, Troop Ships

Describe your experience with the latest version of FreeOrion to help us improve it.

Moderator: Oberlus

Forum rules
Always mention the exact version of FreeOrion you are testing.

When reporting an issue regarding the AI, if possible provide the relevant AI log file and a save game file that demonstrates the issue.
Message
Author
jadwin
Space Floater
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2016 6:35 am
Location: Heidelberg, Germany

Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#1 Post by jadwin »

It often happens, you invade a planet in a system, where you have troop drops and troop ships, that the troop ship are used first. I think first all drops pods should be used and only if necessary to take the planet the troop ships.

SkyCore
Space Floater
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2016 4:37 pm

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#2 Post by SkyCore »

jadwin wrote:It often happens, you invade a planet in a system, where you have troop drops and troop ships, that the troop ship are used first. I think first all drops pods should be used and only if necessary to take the planet the troop ships.
Reminds me of outpost drops and outpost ships... except much more expensive

User avatar
MatGB
Creative Contributor
Posts: 3310
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#3 Post by MatGB »

That would be a backend change that I can't code, but it would be good. However, you can a) choose what ships are used to invade and b) order the troop ships away then cancel the order after the invasion is ordered, I tend to do that more than individual selection.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Nexus
Space Floater
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Aug 14, 2015 8:29 pm

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#4 Post by Nexus »

It would also be good, if you have multiple kinds of troop ship in your fleet, to invade with the smallest number of total troops expended.

For example, say you have 10 ships with 20 troops each and 10 with 6 troops each. You're trying to conquer a planet with 71 defenders. It would be overkill to invade with 4x20. It should default to 3x20+2x6.

User avatar
EricF
Space Dragon
Posts: 357
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2016 10:12 am

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#5 Post by EricF »

This is why it is most efficient to build the smallest troop ship feasible.
The standard Flux hull troop ship is good until the AI's start getting good mine techs.
When the AI starts doing a lot of damage with mines I switch to robo hull ships with one slot of whatever armor I have.

I really don't understand why the AI's build troop ships using Titanic or even Distributed Asteroid hulls. That's just crazy.

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

jadwin wrote:It often happens, you invade a planet in a system, where you have troop drops and troop ships, that the troop ship are used first. I think first all drops pods should be used and only if necessary to take the planet the troop ships.
The challenge / issue with that is defining an algorithm to prioritize ships. Troop drops and troop ships are just designs, no different from player-created designs, so aren't and can't really be treated specially by the UI. So you need to be able to decide what order should be used for ships of arbitrary design, with different species, possibly damaged, perhaps sorted in arbitrary fleet combinations with other ship designs...
Nexus wrote:For example, say you have 10 ships with 20 troops each and 10 with 6 troops each. You're trying to conquer a planet with 71 defenders. It would be overkill to invade with 4x20. It should default to 3x20+2x6.
This is, I think, actually a rather difficult problem for arbitrary ship designs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subset_sum_problem
Not quite the same as you really want "at least enough with minimal wastage" rather than "exact amount", but still... And that's ignoring any other factors that should prioritize which troop ship gets used, as above.
EricF wrote:I really don't understand why the AI's build troop ships using Titanic or even Distributed Asteroid hulls. That's just crazy.
The more troops per ship, the fewer ships you need to produce, which reduces the maintenance cost penalty to producing more ships. You also don't have to pay for the extra hulls per troop pod, though that might be offset by different costs of the bigger hulls anyway.

Nexus
Space Floater
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Aug 14, 2015 8:29 pm

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#7 Post by Nexus »

EricF wrote:This is why it is most efficient to build the smallest troop ship feasible.
The standard Flux hull troop ship is good until the AI's start getting good mine techs.
When the AI starts doing a lot of damage with mines I switch to robo hull ships with one slot of whatever armor I have.

I really don't understand why the AI's build troop ships using Titanic or even Distributed Asteroid hulls. That's just crazy.
Yeah, but there's a maintenance penalty for having a lot of small ships. That's a good reason, in some cases, to favour building a few big troop ships rather than a lot of small ones.

User avatar
EricF
Space Dragon
Posts: 357
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2016 10:12 am

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#8 Post by EricF »

Yea, but troop ships aren't going to be around for very long. They get used up.

defaultuser
Juggernaut
Posts: 854
Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2015 6:15 pm

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#9 Post by defaultuser »

Once I research advanced troop pods, I will often build a combination of regular troop ships with 6, and the same with advanced that carry 12. Even though the advanced are cheaper on a per trooper basis, you can get a bit more efficient with a few 6s in there. Example, gas giant outposts usually have 13 defenders, so one 12 and one 6 is a cheaper total cost than two 12s. It's not a huge difference, and if production is high I often won't bother.

I have armored versions of the two as well, using Basic Large hull with one armor plate of some sort. Most games I don't end up using them, because the unarmored version is so much cheaper that you can lose like 25% or so and still spend less production.

defaultuser
Juggernaut
Posts: 854
Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2015 6:15 pm

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#10 Post by defaultuser »

About the only time I use Titantic hulls for troop ships is if I want to send them in with attackers against the Experimenters. These days, with starlane bore, I normally just wait for the attack ships to knock the shields and defenses down and send in regular troops ships as I can control when and where the lane opens.

User avatar
EricF
Space Dragon
Posts: 357
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2016 10:12 am

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#11 Post by EricF »

defaultuser wrote:Once I research advanced troop pods, I will often build a combination of regular troop ships with 6, and the same with advanced that carry 12. Even though the advanced are cheaper on a per trooper basis, you can get a bit more efficient with a few 6s in there. Example, gas giant outposts usually have 13 defenders, so one 12 and one 6 is a cheaper total cost than two 12s. It's not a huge difference, and if production is high I often won't bother.
I thought about doing something like this, but it seems too much like micro-management just to save a few points of production at a point in the game when I have plenty.

And yes a Titanic hull is cheaper per troop point, but the first time you use one to invade some dinky outpost or other small colony and the amount of PP's wasted is more than made back. Additionally it takes five turns to build a Titanic hull, as opposed to two for a robo hull, AND you need a Geointegraton facility which really limits where you can build them.
The math favors the Asteroid hull better than the Robo hull, but again you are really limiting yourself on where you can build them.

defaultuser
Juggernaut
Posts: 854
Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2015 6:15 pm

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#12 Post by defaultuser »

Yes, it's a bit micro-manage-y. It appeals to the engineer in me.

User avatar
EricF
Space Dragon
Posts: 357
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2016 10:12 am

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#13 Post by EricF »

And in late games because of the F******* Experimentors there are usually a lot of planets that are just outposts.
Invading with a Titan hull would indeed be crazy.
Did I mention I hate the Experimentors? :D

defaultuser
Juggernaut
Posts: 854
Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2015 6:15 pm

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#14 Post by defaultuser »

I only use those for invading the Experimenters.

Morlic
AI Contributor
Posts: 296
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 11:54 am

Re: Troop Drops, Troop Ships

#15 Post by Morlic »

The AI currently determines the troop ships by troop pods / cost while making sure not too have fragile troop ships in mid to late game to avoid being killed off by mines.

I think the ships are good enough for the purpose. While long term it would be a good idea to optimize for a given target planet or the most common troop count of enemy planets, I think there are more pressing issues for the AI (such as actually non-retarded invasion planning). Well, hopefully I soon have more time to tackle those projects I have in mind.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

Post Reply