New Species trait : ship stealth

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LienRag
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New Species trait : ship stealth

#1 Post by LienRag »

If I'm not mistaken, stealth traits only concern planetary stealth, not ships.

Ship stealth per specie could quickly get very unbalanced, and as such should be treated with care.

Since as of now Stealth is mostly useful by steps of +10 (well, lower level could have some use due to the way the Continuous Scanning policy work, but it would be temporary use), it's also difficult to make meaningful levels without making it unbalanced.

But maybe making Very Bad Ship Stealth at -10, Bad at -5, Average at 0, Good at +5, very Good at +10 and Ultimate at +20 it could be interesting ?

Of course that means that Good would be nearly useless compared to Average, and Bad not really worse than Average...

It's also possible I guess, in accordance with my propositions about Situational Stealth, to have Ship Stealth only in some situations.

Like Asteroid Racers that would get a +10 Stealth to their ships when in a system with an Asteroid Belt (even better if it stacks : with many Asteroid Belts in a system, they'd be able to slide from one to the other, moving even more stealthily).

Or Windsurfers that would get a +10 Stealth to their ships when in a system with a Large or Huge Toxic Planet...

Of course the problem with Stealth is that the AI is very bad either at using it or at countering it, so we would need to test all this in multiplayer to track any unexpected exploit.

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LienRag
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Re: New Species trait : ship stealth

#2 Post by LienRag »

So what about this macro ?

I don't know which Species should have this trait, though.

asteroid_racers.macros

Code: Select all

ASTEROID_RACERS
'''

EffectsGroup
            description = "ASTEROID_RACERS_DESC"
            scope = And [
                Source
                Ship
            ]
	    condition = And [ Planet InSystem id = Source.SystemID Planet type = Asteroid ])
            effects = SetStealth value = Value + 10
'''

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Oberlus
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Re: New Species trait : ship stealth

#3 Post by Oberlus »

I like the idea of species trait for ship stealth (-10, 0, +10, +20, +30). Bad wouldn't totally disallow stealth, Good would not be a crack, Great would allow for some nice strategies. Give it only to species that suck at other things (like production or weapons) and it should be balanced.

I would not mix it with situational stealth, the species trait, or not too much. Let the player decide what situations s/he wants to exploit after species is chosen.

We already have asteroid hulls that boost their stealth when on belts.

The problem with hulls getting extra stealth from planet environments is that it makes no sense at all. If you go and hide in the oceans of a planet, you can't do a sneak attack, you are detected before you get out of the atmosphere, yarayara.
Same for (in other threats) stuff like harnessing the lava of a planet to increase ship speed. How can you use the heat of lava from planet's surface in your interstellar ship engines? I don't like it at all. Fluffs doesn't need to be realistic, but also they should not be counterintuitive. Lava boosting local production makes sense, oceans hiding buildings, etc. But ships need fluff based on the space.

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LienRag
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Re: New Species trait : ship stealth

#4 Post by LienRag »

Fluff definitely needs more work, yes.

And I agree with you that credibility and immersion are very important features, I'm just not very good at generating them.

Note that with a good rewriting it may be possible to salvage some of my attempts at justifying in-game the new mechanisms, though.

Ships making a sneak attack from a hidden position is already what Multi-Spectral Shields do, so I'm not sure that using Hydroplasmic hulls to hide in oceans is really jumping the shark.

Also, the Lava thingy doesn't harness the Lava, it harnesses the ginormous magnetic fields created by lava flows inside the planet's core, so it's not entirely impossible (it would probably need to be explained better, yes).

I know about the Asteroid Hull bonus, it's my experience with this Situational Stealth (the only one that the AI know how to use, actually) that made me understand how much situational stealth is more fun and strategic than general stealth.

But the Asteroid Stealth is too weak, basically it's 25 in an Asteroid Belt at a stage when enemy detection is at least 30. So while I don't want to copy it entirely (it would make no sense to have each planet type give a specific Stealth bonus, that would bring uniformity, not diversity), I still wanted to develop that Situational Stealth with different mechanisms.

For Situational traits, I base my work on the idea that the more traits there are, the merrier, as it allows for very diverse Species.
So a Species having a generic Stealth trait would play very differently from one having a Situational Stealth trait; and the balance could be different.
Windsurfers for example do not need to be as crippled as a Species with a +30 generic Ship Stealth (nearly unblockable for most of the game).

You may be right that Species Situational Ship Stealth Traits could mean driving their strategy instead of diversifying it, I don't know.
And obviously it would be a problem, we certainly don't want to drive a player's strategy entirely, especially not his military strategy.
My goal is to provide opportunities, that would diversify strategy and make for a better game, and I'm not entirely certain that Situation Ship Stealth, if carefully balanced, cannot reach this objective.

Let's say we give Fulver the Windsurfer trait, for whatever fluff reason we can imagine : yes this will heavily incite them to colonize Tundras in systems where there are large Toxic planets, but are there so many of them ?
So apart from a few cases, they'll mostly have to devise a strategy using these Toxic planets as base of operation to militarily interdict the area as a whole : to me it's a very interesting strategic challenge, not a no-brainer.

If we skip the Ship part, let's say we give Muyrukure a +30 Planetary Stealth in Swamps and +20 in Toxic ; they'll have to play very differently than Laenfas.
Of course they will settle Swamps stealthily, and even Toxic if they can, but you're an experienced player enough to understand that they won't necessarily find enough planets of these type, so instead of having all their Empire at the same stealth, they'll have some planets hidden from other players and some that will be exposed and whose defense they'll have to manage differently than the others.

So imho, if we can be careful enough to never completely drive the players' strategies, every Situational Trait is a boon.
Last edited by LienRag on Tue May 25, 2021 9:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: New Species trait : ship stealth

#5 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 7:21 pm I like the idea of species trait for ship stealth (-10, 0, +10, +20, +30). Bad wouldn't totally disallow stealth, Good would not be a crack, Great would allow for some nice strategies. Give it only to species that suck at other things (like production or weapons) and it should be balanced.
+20 and +30 would be very high levels I believe.
Not only would it provide for a huge military advantage, it would allow unfettered colonization and scouting.
Maybe keeping the Ultimate trait for unable to colonize Natives with very bad vision, very bad fuel and very bad weapons ?
But even the Good trait would be quite difficult to balance...
Of course if the Continuous Scanning policy is kept as it is (RIP Laenfas), a mere +20 is not impossible to counter.


Oberlus wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 7:21 pm But ships need fluff based on the space.
Initially I wanted to have Stealth generated by Double Stars, as there are the right number or them : enough to make a part actually usable (not like if I made a part useful only in systems with a Neutron star) without being too numerous as to make this part a no-brainer.
But it seems that it's not possible to test for a double star, they seem to not be FOCS objects.

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Re: New Species trait : ship stealth

#6 Post by Oberlus »

Detection strength levels go by 20 per step. +5 is negligible, not worth it. +10 is seldom useful, for very specific hulls for a short time. +20 just allows you to stay one stealth tech level behind average players. It's the same as with planetary stealth.
Either it can be balanced with the values I recommend or the whole trait is useless, the solution is not to limit it to +5 and +10.

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LienRag
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Re: New Species trait : ship stealth

#7 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 9:46 pm +10 is seldom useful, for very specific hulls for a short time.
Yes for the first part, no for the second : as it adds to the +20 from each new stealth level, it stays useful to the end (at least up to Omni-Scanner).
So yes, it's a bonus in specific situations (not only hulls : Resonant Moons also), not the ultimate trait. Still adds diversity to the game imho.

But yes for the +5/15 values, they're nearly useless (not entirely due to Continuous Scanning, as mentioned in the OP, but of very limited use).
That's the disadvantage of using non-unbalancing levels, I reckon.

Oberlus wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 9:46 pm It's the same as with planetary stealth.
Technically yes, strategically no.
Planetary Stealth is defensive, Ship Stealth is much more powerful.

Oberlus wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 9:46 pm Either it can be balanced with the values I recommend or the whole trait is useless, the solution is not to limit it to +5 and +10.
If you read the original post, I do not limit it to +5 and +10, it ranges from -10 to +20, which seems to me an acceptable range.

Note that +1 Shield is not an extraordinary change to the game either, but it's still what Acirema get - a Trait doesn't have to be extremely powerful to be interesting.

Maybe if we experiment with my proposition we can later decide to boost the boni; right now I believe that going from +0 to +30 in one go will be too hard to balance.

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Re: New Species trait : ship stealth

#8 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 10:33 pm
Oberlus wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 9:46 pm +10 is seldom useful, for very specific hulls for a short time.
Yes for the first part, no for the second : as it adds to the +20 from each new stealth level, it stays useful to the end (at least up to Omni-Scanner).
Think it again. The +20 from each new stealth level comes from new hulls, new parts, that you have to build. The older ships (very specific hulls, maybe three) that were hidden thanks to that +10 will stop being hidden in a short time.
LienRag wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 10:33 pm So yes, it's a bonus in specific situations (not only hulls : Resonant Moons also), not the ultimate trait. Still adds diversity to the game imho.
That's why I would put the +10 in Good.
Great with +20 would be less specific, but still temporal, you still need to keep developing new techs, discarding old designs and building new ones.
LienRag wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 10:33 pm But yes for the +5/15 values, they're nearly useless (not entirely due to Continuous Scanning, as mentioned in the OP, but of very limited use).
That's the disadvantage of using non-unbalancing levels, I reckon.
Having a useless trait is not a disadvantage in game design, is just useless.

LienRag wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 10:33 pm
Oberlus wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 9:46 pm It's the same as with planetary stealth.
Technically yes, strategically no.
Planetary Stealth is defensive, Ship Stealth is much more powerful.
I was talking about the technical part, yes.
But anyways, ship stealth allows for one round of shots without being shoot at, planetary stealth allows for invulnerability to invasion. And that has nothing to do with the fact that +5 bonuses are useless and hence pointless.
LienRag wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 10:33 pm
Oberlus wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 9:46 pm Either it can be balanced with the values I recommend or the whole trait is useless, the solution is not to limit it to +5 and +10.
If you read the original post, I do not limit it to +5 and +10, it ranges from -10 to +20, which seems to me an acceptable range.
+5 and +15 are not acceptable values.
+10, +20 and +30 are.
LienRag wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 10:33 pm Note that +1 Shield is not an extraordinary change to the game either, but it's still what Acirema get - a Trait doesn't have to be extremely powerful to be interesting.
Wrong, it's quite a bit of damage you save, and keeps working even late game. Not comparable with a stealth bonus that has no effect at all during 99% of the game.
LienRag wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 10:33 pm Maybe if we experiment with my proposition we can later decide to boost the boni; right now I believe that going from +0 to +30 in one go will be too hard to balance.
Experiment with your proposition with my recommended values, you'll see it is not unbalanced. Or do it with yours to find out by yourself that +5 is pointless and "good stealth ships" would be a dead trait.

I'm out of this discussion.

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Re: New Species trait : ship stealth

#9 Post by wobbly »

I'd argue that species stealth is better handled with a tech unlock. There's an argument for starting laenfa and sly with the 1st stealth part unlocked.

Particularly now continuous scanning has become a thing and hiding is now harder.

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Re: New Species trait : ship stealth

#10 Post by Oberlus »

wobbly wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 7:55 am I'd argue that species stealth is better handled with a tech unlock. There's an argument for starting laenfa and sly with the 1st stealth part unlocked.
That's also a possibility, but that loses significance mid game. It would be relevant only early game. With a species trait, you could have some edge also late game. I like that.

wobbly wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 7:55 am Particularly now continuous scanning has become a thing and hiding is now harder.
Maybe... Active Scanning (first detection tech) should not give any detection stregth bonus but unlock Continuous Scanning policy.

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Stealth Species

#11 Post by Daybreak »

I have not bothered with stealth before, because playing AI it gave me too much of an advantage.

However playing every species in preparation for multiplayer, I don't understand -

A Species with good piloting skills, affects ships.
A Species with better shields skills, affects ships.
A Species with better Detectionskills, affects ships.


A Species with better Stealth, Does not affect ships. (This is in 4.9 at moment, so maybe that has changed in 4.10+)

I don't get that. I think that it should have an effect on ships.
However -
1) it should be by 10 or 20 only
2) It should not affect organic ships for whatever reason we make up, especially the Protoplasmic hull.

see viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12354&sid=d92190fc9 ... caef270afa

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Re: New Species trait : ship stealth

#12 Post by LienRag »

With the new (and very interesting - at least when the bug to Fleet Unstealthiness will be corrected) small boni/mali to Stealth from empty space, high radiation star and fleet size, I believe that +5 steps for Stealth would be very interesting, allowing to cross the threshold of detection (in one sense or the other) in many situations.

I still don't know whose species should use which level, though.

Maybe start with non-playable natives able to build ships ?

Like GisGusThrim Good Stealth ?
Re-give Hhoh Good Pilot trait and make them Bad Stealth (elephants are not particularly stealthy) ?
Derthrean Very Good Stealth ?

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