New Troops System

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UrshMost
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New Troops System

#1 Post by UrshMost »

(This pertains to build March 21 2016)

So apparently you can only build troop ships on a planet up until the actual number of troops available on that planet?

Doesn't that introduce a new micromanagement item into the game? Instead of building 100 troops at one planet I now have to spread that troop ship production out over multiple planets?

What about instead if there was a total of supply connected troops available and troop ships decreased that?
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mem359
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Re: New Troops System

#2 Post by mem359 »

I'm glad you pointed this out.

I was wondering why my (3 x troop ships) was completely paid for, but not being built (until I increased the troop capacity of that planet).

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Bromstarzan
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Re: New Troops System

#3 Post by Bromstarzan »

oups! Yes, this caused me a little confusion coming from build 150901 to 160321. I like the concept as it "slows down" the pace of the game, at least that's how I feel in the early phase. Also, affect strategic decision, question is; how do I increase my troop numbers (i.e. increase planetary troop capacity) :mrgreen: (need to dive into Pedia...)

So, basically I will have to build troop ships at every owned planet and then rally together my forces, I guess... Where are the "Full metal jacket" training camps in the research tree :D
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Toastmartin
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Re: New Troops System

#4 Post by Toastmartin »

?!?!?!?
wtf, my ships don't get build .. no error message, nothing ..
how exactly does that work?? when is the ammount replenished? or can I finish troop ships up to the total ammount of troops on the planet EACH turn? now that would just be a micromanagement desaster .. the I have to que the ships, so that every turn the maximum number of troops ist produced ..

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mem359
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Re: New Troops System

#5 Post by mem359 »

Toastmartin wrote:?!?!?!?
wtf, my ships don't get build .. no error message, nothing ..
how exactly does that work?? when is the ammount replenished? or can I finish troop ships up to the total ammount of troops on the planet EACH turn? now that would just be a micromanagement desaster .. the I have to que the ships, so that every turn the maximum number of troops ist produced ..
The troop ships (or troop drops) are taking soldiers from the planet where the ship is being built.
So the ships will be built as normal (production points), but will not be created until there are enough troops (current, not max limit) on the planet to cover the number needed in the ship.

That means you should never build a (100x troop ship), because there will never be enough soldiers on the planet to cover the cost. I have been doing (many repeat builds of a single troop ship) from planets behind the main lines, and then using the "rally to system X" to get them to a single place to be organized.

After a troop ship has been created, usually it takes a while for the planet to regenerate enough troops to cover the next ship. While annoying, this does mean that it is worthwhile to invest in the Defense techs for troops (to increase the regeneration rate), even if your empire has an overwhelming battle fleet.

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Bromstarzan
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Re: New Troops System

#6 Post by Bromstarzan »

I like it - a lot!
Took a while to finish my ships (did a couple of 3 x troopship), but with investment in defense research and population growth, it finally delivered those ships. I need to read up a little more on the best way to increase the troop capacity. At first, a little confusing to invest in defence systems while you're actually planning to attack! That's a question of definition/category/choice of words I guess.
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Toastmartin
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Re: New Troops System

#7 Post by Toastmartin »

do I undesternd correctly, that the ground troops are REMOVED from the planet in the process of building the ship??
that is not uncool of a concept ..
(of course that kind of change needs documentation to be undestood and liked .. )

side note: If this change persists, the splitting of "good/bad gound troops" into "defense" and "offensive" makes no sense any more ..

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MatGB
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Re: New Troops System

#8 Post by MatGB »

Bromstarzan wrote: So, basically I will have to build troop ships at every owned planet and then rally together my forces, I guess.
And that's one of the reasons why I'll be commenting the change out at some point before the next test build until we've had a LOT more proper discussion on the implications of this, we're supposed to be setting it up to require little to no shipyards beyond your main one, not making you need them everywhere nor make it almost impossible to build a fleet to invade a single system.
toastmartin wrote: side note: If this change persists, the splitting of "good/bad gound troops" into "defense" and "offensive" makes no sense any more ..
That and the current implementaion is horrifically unbalanced.

This may, or may not, be a good idea in principle, but as implemented it's a mess, it messes up the species balance massively, breaks player expectation, breaks the AI (which builds too many troop ships a lot of the time anyway) and needs careful work with the numbers, especially with the implications on good/bad ground troops as a stat which we haven't even finished balancing properly yet.
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Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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MatGB
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Re: New Troops System

#9 Post by MatGB »

I've commented out the change until it can be worked through properly, for those wanting to make the change themselves the version of the file is here.

Save it into freeorion/default/scripting/ship_parts

If you're on Windows, you'll need to save it using administrator privileges, it's been awhile since I had to do that so best figure it out yourself or there are many howtos out there if you've never done it.
Mat Bowles

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

Piwoslaw
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Re: New Troops System

#10 Post by Piwoslaw »

So if you have invested in a higher level of defensive troops than your opponent, then not only will he have a hard time producing enough troops to invade you, but you can easily invade him.

Also, this favors an empire with more planets, as opposed to less, but more powerful, planets.

It is an interesting twist to strategy, but very easily loses balance - it is enough that my opponent has more suitable planets close to his homeworld than I do and I no longer have any real chance to fight him.

AndrewW
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Re: New Troops System

#11 Post by AndrewW »

MatGB wrote:And that's one of the reasons why I'll be commenting the change out at some point before the next test build until we've had a LOT more proper discussion on the implications of this, we're supposed to be setting it up to require little to no shipyards beyond your main one, not making you need them everywhere nor make it almost impossible to build a fleet to invade a single system.
Also comes close to forcing one to research techs one may not otherwise research.

defaultuser
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Re: New Troops System

#12 Post by defaultuser »

It's always a bit risky to poke at in-game logic, but it doesn't make a lot of sense that you can populate colonies using the supply lines but not to be able to do the same for troop ships. I mean, there's apparently some sort of supply/people moving system, so why wouldn't trained troops move by that method?

This seems a bit of step backwards. One of the motivations behind the new colony system was to reduce micromanagement and building shipyards all over the place to serve as sources for colony ships.

LGM-Doyle
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Re: New Troops System

#13 Post by LGM-Doyle »

Supply connection does suggest a solution.

The troop ships deplete troops from all of the supply connected planets in the group.

The simplest is to uniformly pull from all connected planets.
But perhaps they pull from locally connected systems first. Then supplying an armada from
one location creates a valley of low troop levels in the surrounding systems.

Pulling from supply connected planets would also require being able to designate which
colonies are appropriate for supplying troops.
Otherwise your Gysache would mix with your Egassem. Perhaps a shipyard
on a Egassem planet only pulls troops from other Egassem planets is the simplest way.

All methods require an indication on the production queue that correctly reflects both
the number of turns to completion with respect to industry resources and troop resources.
Perhaps if you increase the size of your order of troop transports to 10X and there are
only 9X troops available it switches to Never complete. While not strictly accurate as
troops regenerate as they are loaded, it may suffice. Perhaps a tooltip
"Insufficient troops on supply connected planets"

slv
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Re: New Troops System

#14 Post by slv »

Not sure if it was intended but for "Bad Troops" starting species (mostly Laenfa) this system is extremely crippling as it is now.

Not only planets have twice smaller troop number, whenever you build basic troopship (6 troops for usual species, 3 for laenfa) the amount of troops removed from planet is 6 (= number of troops in human ship). This makes invading potential of laenfa 4 times lower than normal species, not 2 times lower as it was. I think if you build a 3-troop ship then 3 troops should be removed from planet, not 6.

I am having rather mixed feelings about this system. It indeed makes expansion slower, makes terraforming/Gaia and colonisation actually worthy. Speed of conquest is pretty much bottlenecked by troop-producing speed even if you have stargate system devoted to troop-transportation.

I guess this system requires having a few more troop-regen research technologies

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MatGB
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Re: New Troops System

#15 Post by MatGB »

slv wrote:Not sure if it was intended but for "Bad Troops" starting species (mostly Laenfa) this system is extremely crippling as it is now.
It was playing as Laenfa that made me realise it was even worse than I thought reading the code, hence it'll be disabled in the next test until we can get it right, seriously, comment it out as it really does make the game unplayable with bad/bad species and really hurts the AI.
Not only planets have twice smaller troop number, whenever you build basic troopship (6 troops for usual species, 3 for laenfa) the amount of troops removed from planet is 6 (= number of troops in human ship). This makes invading potential of laenfa 4 times lower than normal species, not 2 times lower as it was. I think if you build a 3-troop ship then 3 troops should be removed from planet, not 6.
Agreed, at a bare minimum each pod should reduce by only one regardless of actual strength unless we can do it in a much more nuanced way.
I am having rather mixed feelings about this system. It indeed makes expansion slower, makes terraforming/Gaia and colonisation actually worthy. Speed of conquest is pretty much bottlenecked by troop-producing speed even if you have stargate system devoted to troop-transportation.
And you really shouldn't need to build a network of stargates just to move troops around (get them to the front, yes, but just to build them?)
I guess this system requires having a few more troop-regen research technologies
And as Andrew says above we traditionally try to avoid forcing users to go for a specific tech as much as is possible, I'm especially opposed to requiring higher "defence" tech levels in order to be able to attack (plus I'm hoping/planning to make the troop techs more expensive at some point relatively soon, or possibly introduce a lot more of them with smaller increments, as they're far too cheap at the moment)
Mat Bowles

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

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