Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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What should ship weapons usually target?

Planets, ships and fighters equally
1
10%
First target ships and planets. If no planet or ships: target fighters
3
30%
Target only ships and planets. (Also remove fallbacks for other weapon types)
5
50%
Something different (please explain)
1
10%
 
Total votes: 10

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Ophiuchus
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Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#1 Post by Ophiuchus »

Currently ship weapons target equally enemy planets, fighters and ships. In turn one may "waste" heavy-damage shots on e.g. an enemy interceptor.

Coming from the discussion about ship cost efficiency, having the fighters act as smoke screens makes the estimation of ship cost efficiency really difficult and in turn the balancing (and the discussion about balancing) really hard. So from that direction it makes sense to keep the ship guns targeted at "real" enemies.

Looking the other direction I also do not really see a real necessity gameplay wise for ship weapons to target enemy fighters.

I think it would be good by default to prevent ship weapons from targeting fighters as long as there are enemy ships or dangerous enemy planets. With current content that applies to MD,L,P,DR,Core Gun. Flak is the exception.

The ensuing combat would be like: Ship weapons shoot at ships and planets. Bombers shoot at ships. Interceptors shoot at fighters. Fighter fighters attack all fighters and ships. Flak shoots down fighters.

There are also other more complicated options for targeting but those two are the most straightforward.

Edit1: I try to add another option "target only ships and planets. (Also remove fallbacks for other weapon types)" for
Boats will be gone next turn if no carriers are left. If this is chosen I assume that we make stealth carriers visible if they launch fighters (which we should do anyway). Here is the suggestion in Krikkitone's words
Krikkitone wrote: Mon Sep 16, 2019 6:39 pm I think you should have weapons distinguished on what they Can target rather than what they Tend to target.

Standard Weapons Only target ships and planets, even if all that is left is fighters they can't attack them
PD Weapons Only target Fighters/bomber/interceptors and missiles/torpedoes if they go in (they cannot attack ships/planets)

Interceptors and flak would be PD weapons
Bombers would be standard
Fighters could be PD+attack ships (but not planets)
Edit2: Here is the PR-2665 implementing Krikkitone's KISS hard targeting (the changes are only in folder default/ )
Last edited by Ophiuchus on Thu Dec 05, 2019 12:17 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#2 Post by JonCST »

This is an interesting question.

If there are a lot of fighters, and you target them last, they'll do a lot of damage. On the other hand, if you kill the carrier, the fighters will vanish next turn. Ignoring the fighters means more hits on the "important" ships. It's a bit of a trade-of.

Ignoring fighters with "real" weapons would make flac cannons and interceptors more important, i suppose.

Also, bombers: by virtue of the name, they should attack planets if there are no ships to attack.

MHO, of course.

J

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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#3 Post by alleryn »

There's the concern of deterministic targeting and are we planning to model ships evading as well (so that you aren't always choosing your first priority target):

Basically this post of Vezzra's:
Vezzra wrote: Sun Aug 26, 2018 12:21 pm First of all, these are some interesting ideas you guys are coming up with here. However, IMO all of you are working with a faulty premise, which is that our current combat system/implementation primarily simulates/abstracts target selection and firing, and basically assumes that (when resolving space combat) more or less everyone is in range of everyone else. This statement by Oberlus illustrates it perfectly:
Oberlus wrote: Sun Aug 19, 2018 12:29 pmI mean, it's still so awkward that the spinal is targetting boats while there is a straight line between the spinal cannon and the best possible objective, which has been visible from before the combat started (i.e. nothing prevents the spinal cannon to fire directly at it from the beginning).
That's simply not the case.

Lets step back for a momentand try to take a more comprehensive look on how battles "work", particularly how they are usually modelled in war games. Basically there are two major "components" or "aspects" that make up battle/combat simulation: movement and firing (as we're talking space battles here, we don't need to generalize to include melee vs. ranged attacks). As I've already explained on different occasions in earlier discussions, our current combat model tries to abstract/simulate both equally (although in a very crudely simplified way, it's only a stop-gap solution after all).

Simply put, movement is where each opponent tries to maneuver their forces into positions where they can maximize how efficiently they can use their weapons against the enemy and minimize how efficiently the enemy can use their weapons against them. Firing is where, once opposing forces get into firing distance, targets are selected and weapons are fired. However, what targets are available to you very much depends on how cleverly (or not) you managed to outmaneuver your opponent.

This reminds me of something I dimly recall to have read many years ago about naval combat, IIRC it's called "to cross someone's T", which comes from the times when the cannons of warships were mounted on their broadsides. Now, with this setting, it was important to maneuver your ship so that you can fire as much of your cannons at the enemy, while preventing your enemy from doing the same. "Crossing your enemies T" meant accomplishing the ideal maneuver: you pass in front of the opposing ship's bow (or behind it's stern) with your broadside facing them (hence "T"). That meant, while passing the enemy ship, you could fire all the cannons of your broadside at them, while they couldn't return the fire (or just with the very few cannons mounted at the bow or stern, if they had that).

Which meant, you were able to make maximum use of your firepower, while your enemy could only use a fraction of theirs (if any at all). Basically jackpot, so to speak. This way a naval vessel with much less firepower could still sink a much stronger enemy ship, if it succeeded in cleverly outmaneuvering them.

Now apply that to FO space combat. Keep in mind, the current combat resolution does not just resolve a simple skirmish, but a battle that spans the entire star systems it takes place in. Meaning, we're talking about a prolonged battle spanning a vast area, which (particularly in cases where more than just a few spaceships are involved) most likely is broken up into a lot of smaller and larger skirmishes, and probably last weeks or months (not just a few hours).

This means, the current system abstracts/simulates all fleet operations, movement, maneuvering etc. all participants perform to bring their forces into optimal positions and strike against their enemies, as well as the actual exchange of fire whenever parts of their forces come into firing distance. So, to come back to the often cited example where the Spinal Antimatter Cannon shoots down a fighter and ignores that big enemy juggernaut right beside it: that's not what happens. If the Antimatter Cannon fires at a fighter while there are far more powerful targets still around, that simply means the ship with that cannon hasn't been able to get into a position where it can fire on a more eligible target. The fighter, as measly a target as it is, was the only/best target available.

Or maybe the fighter just sacrified itself by hurling itself between the cannon and it's intended target. Or maybe the fighter got into the firing line of the Antimatter Cannon just coincidentally, while involved in a dogfight. The more smaller crafts run around, the higher the chance one of those get in the way, so to speak.

Basically, in cases where the target selection of one of the combatants looks completely off, it's not because the idiot gunner thought that a fighter is a more valuable target for an Antimatter Cannon than a planet, but because the enemy managed to "cross their T": they outmaneuvered their opponent, so that said opponent could only use their weapons very inefficiently.

I guess you get the picture.

Now back to the suggestions presented here. The problem with those is, they only try to address/improve the targetting/firing aspect/part, while bascially ignoring the movement/maneuvering aspect/part. Which, IMO, means that with those changes you certainly get a combat simulation that works differently, but it won't be an improvement. It won't be any more "realistic". Best case, it's just different. Less than best case it might actually turn out worse than the current system (because more complex, but without really improving things).

Personally I think the current system works sufficiently well, once you adopt the right "fluff explanation" for it, so the Antimatter Cannon shooting down fighters doesn't bother you that much anymore. Sure, even with the above explanation, the current system is extremely crude, and certainly has some glaring flaws that should be fixed. The fighters taking a round to launch thing is one of them, as that doesn't fit at all with the abstraction level I explained above, makes things more complicated, harder to balance and compare, while adding exactly nothing interesting (IMO).

But all in all the current system it's still good enough as a stop-gap solution, so I don't really see the need to tinker with it (other than fixing said glaring glitches).

However, if you guys absolutely want to invest the time and energy to improve a system that's going to get discarded at some point, that's fine with me. But if you do that, do it right, which means any attempt at improvement has to take into account the whole picture, all the aspects of space combat abstracted by the current system, not just one part of it - that would only throw things out of balance IMO. So, if you want to have a more detailed/sophisticated simulation for target selection and firing, please also come up with something that provides an equally detailed/sophisticated simulation of the movement/maneuvering part.

Because I want to retain e.g. things like the current ability of carriers to hide behind the fighters they can field (or, in that particular case, improve it by removing that fighters take one round to launch thing). If a carrier goes up against a direct fire ship, the latter should have a hard time to get past the fighter screen to actually target the carrier. So it makes sense that most/all of the shots of the direct fire ship will hit fighters, not the carrier, at the start of the combat. Only by taking down enough fighters will increase the chance to get through to the carrier.

If only implementing the improvements to firing/targetting (as if all participating vessels where in range of each other anyway all the time), than that would change dynamics greatly to the disadvantage of the carrier, and defeat a good part of what makes fighters a distinct kind of weapon. A carrier should be able to keep enemies at distance with their fighter squadrons, after all.

And it should be difficult to get a ship equipped with a Spinal Antimatter Cannon into a position where it can use the cannon with maximum efficiency. Especially when facing an opponent who can cover their bigger assets behind lots of small crafts. The current system actually takes care of that quite well IMO. An improved system needs to take of all these things at least as well, otherwise it's really not worth the effort.
in this thread viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11048&sid=d4bcf9417 ... 4cb9037528, which should probably be "required reading" for this discussion.

From an overall methodology standpoint i would tend to agree (i think i'm agreeing, otherwise just presenting my viewpoint) that ships (and other potential targets to varying degrees) should have a say in NOT being targeted, as much as they have in a say in "who" they are targeting. Evasive maneuvers and so forth.

That is somewhat less important to me than trying to create a balanced and interesting tactical battle (but maybe this is a 'have it and eat it' type situation). In terms of balance, i wonder what role you expect fighters to have if not serving to take hits from large enemy weapons? Right now, they serve multiple roles. At least:
  1. Taking shots from larger enemy weapons (typically ship weapons). This is arguably their most useful role
  2. Anti-shield. I don't think shields are currently very useful overall, but i'm still figuring things out. If this is true then serving as a counter to what is itself already mainly a counter-tactic isn't a very attractive role.
  3. Dealing large numbers of small hits. This is useful at least for (a)taking out large numbers of small targets, which here would basically amount to other fighters and (b)adding some 'fine granularity' to your attack profile. Basically trying to smooth out your damage distribution should somewhat reduce the amount of randomness in the damage you deal. This 3b is probably a relatively minor factor.
  4. Avoiding targeting planets. If you are fighting enemy fleets over a system with multiple planets whose defenses are either depleted or non-existent (e.g. a low tech system with multiple outposts), then avoiding targeting planets could be useful, but this is rather niche.
Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 12:43 pm The ensuing combat would be like: Ship weapons shoot at ships and planets. Bombers shoot at ships. Interceptors shoot at fighters. Fighter fighters attack all fighters and ships. Flak shoots down fighters.
I guess my question is why would people be building fighters at all now? Combat would just be 'Ship weapons shoot at ships and planets'. I guess if bombers/fighter-fighters are outperforming beam ships (not currently the case, but numbers can always be tweaked), then maybe it could boil down to some iteration like Player 1 starts building beam ships to take down planetary defenses. Player 2 counters with bomber carriers. Player 1 counters with fighter-fighter carriers. Player 2 counters with interceptor carriers, or something like that?

I'm not sure how much this would change things, rather just shift beam ships to an "artillery"-type role (rather than space supremacy as they are now) and bomber/fighter carriers into that space supremacy role. Mostly conjecture.

My preference/opinion on targeting in this case is that it's somewhat meaningless to answer the poll question in a vacuum. WIthout some more broad perspective understanding how combat ought to work, it's pretty much irrelevant whether ships target fighters or not. If we pick one or the other, we can choose other rules relative to that to keep battle interesting in either case.

I think the current system does that (keeps battle interesting) to an extent, with improvements possible, but i'm not entirely certain how changing ships targeting/not fighters would be an improvement rather than just different -- your claim is that caclulating ship efficiency when fighters are taking a defensive role is difficult, but i'm not really convinced of that. If nothing else just doing statistical analysis of various combat scenarios with a combat simulator should give us a good idea of what fleet building strategies are most cost effective. If we make it "too easy" to calculate efficiency we may have sacrificed complexity that makes battles interesting as well. Not saying that's what is happening here necessarily, though.

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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#4 Post by Ophiuchus »

alleryn wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:44 pm There's the concern of deterministic targeting and are we planning to model ships evading as well (so that you aren't always choosing your first priority target):
Vezzra wrote: Sun Aug 26, 2018 12:21 pm..very long quote touching lots of different topics.. talking about splitting evasion and hitting... talking about current stop-gap system.. ..talking about having carriers have a defensive advantage because of their fighters..
So what is the (your) concern here?

I am talking about much smaller change than factoring in evasive maneouvers. I am not sure we want fighters to give a defensive advantage for their carriers.
Vezzra is always thinking (WWI/II?) naval battles (thats also why our bombers are called bombers even though they do not bomb planets). In that case it actually depends on the fighter type and mission if the carrier has better protection or not.
If your fighters are away bombing the enemy ship they have different weapon load and are actually not even close to your carrier.

Also in order to simulate we could give e.g. a +1 shield for non-empty carriers of interceptors, and e.g. +2 max structure bonus for each interceptor fighter on board at start of battle.
alleryn wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:44 pmAnti-shield. I don't think shields are currently very useful overall, but i'm still figuring things out. If this is true then serving as a counter to what is itself already mainly a counter-tactic isn't a very attractive role.
Shields should matter. And actually maybe they do. Did anybody try rushing with Organic Hull and mass driver? These are quite low-tech and have good cost efficiency if not going against shields.
alleryn wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:44 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 12:43 pm The ensuing combat would be like: Ship weapons shoot at ships and planets. Bombers shoot at ships. Interceptors shoot at fighters. Fighter fighters attack all fighters and ships. Flak shoots down fighters.
I guess my question is why would people be building fighters at all now? Combat would just be 'Ship weapons shoot at ships and planets'. I guess if bombers/fighter-fighters are outperforming beam ships (not currently the case, but numbers can always be tweaked), then maybe it could boil down to some iteration like Player 1 starts building beam ships to take down planetary defenses. Player 2 counters with bomber carriers. Player 1 counters with fighter-fighter carriers. Player 2 counters with interceptor carriers, or something like that?
Yes cost efficiency for certain strategic situations. Not acting as smoke screen is a big nerf and should of course be balanced with a buff.
I think the current system does that (keeps battle interesting) to an extent, with improvements possible, but i'm not entirely certain how changing ships targeting/not fighters would be an improvement rather than just different -- your claim is that caclulating ship efficiency when fighters are taking a defensive role is difficult, but i'm not really convinced of that.
If you have two systems are about the same level and one makes balancing more easy - I strongly prefer taking the easier one.
We should not have a complexity in the system we can not reason about.

And if we can reason about our battles (no matter the complexity; e.g. using a combat simulator) these are always "predictable" and should be available in my opinion to AI and players before battle. Also there should be the element of surprise by misjudging which vessels will participate in a given battle.

The "complexity" should be in deciding the investment what fleets to build and to how to manouver your fleet so that you get the battles you will win at acceptable losses.

If you think estimating cost efficiency of current battle system is not hard - I would love to see your analysis in the other thread; because claiming that does not make it true.


Regarding the poll I am confused - there are now 2 choices for "something different" without posts really explaining what they want (or maybe alleryn did say but i can not "see the tree in the woods").

And maybe I did state my question in a bad way, but "i do want a real combat system not this stop-gap one" "i want to model evasive manouvers and distance and combat speed" are not "something different" because its like saying "No I want something different - i want a Ferrari" - because it does not provide me with usable alternative on a similar scale of change.

So please explain (again?) what you want. Or should I add an option/or interpret those two as "Either way would be ok?"
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#5 Post by alleryn »

Ophiuchus wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 9:50 am
alleryn wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:44 pm There's the concern of deterministic targeting and are we planning to model ships evading as well (so that you aren't always choosing your first priority target):
Vezzra wrote: Sun Aug 26, 2018 12:21 pm..very long quote touching lots of different topics.. talking about splitting evasion and hitting... talking about current stop-gap system.. ..talking about having carriers have a defensive advantage because of their fighters..
So what is the (your) concern here?
Basically i don't really like relying overly-much on "x always targets y" (e.g. ships always target other ships). It gives the feeling that the firing entity is always making the choice about the tageting, instead of the ships on the other end also having a say. I suppose if we also add rules about "y cannot be targeted by x" (something like a stealth bomber that can't be targeted by other fighters -- it's role would be to target planets) it could work but maybe there is a simpler way.

Ultimately the current random targeting system works. I like introducing small targeting rules (the current flak/interceptors targeting fighters), but not broad rules. Whatever the ships we decide should be the bulk of people's forces (the "default ship", not that there has to be one, but i think it's both easiest for balance and also difficult to avoid a system where some type of ship is the default), whichever ship type that is (i'd say it's currently the beam ship), that ship should have fully random targeting, at least for now. This is just my personal preference (i see it as the "starting point" around which to balance everything else in a (fluffwise) chaotic battle where most things are random(ish)).
I am talking about much smaller change than factoring in evasive maneouvers. I am not sure we want fighters to give a defensive advantage for their carriers.
Vezzra is always thinking (WWI/II?) naval battles (thats also why our bombers are called bombers even though they do not bomb planets). In that case it actually depends on the fighter type and mission if the carrier has better protection or not.
If your fighters are away bombing the enemy ship they have different weapon load and are actually not even close to your carrier.
I guess this somewhat overlaps with what i was saying about you can't design in a vacuum. It's hard to decide whether ships should target fighters when we haven't decided which combat system are we talking about. If we are talking about a system where bombers target ships, the answer may be different than if we are talking about a system where bombers target planets, or one in which bombers target randomly.
alleryn wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:44 pmAnti-shield. I don't think shields are currently very useful overall, but i'm still figuring things out. If this is true then serving as a counter to what is itself already mainly a counter-tactic isn't a very attractive role.
Shields should matter. And actually maybe they do. Did anybody try rushing with Organic Hull and mass driver? These are quite low-tech and have good cost efficiency if not going against shields.
I believe the first shield (the one unlocked by Force Field Harmonics) is already cost-inefficient as soon as MD4 is researched (maybe even MD3). My understanding is that in the current system, shields are only cost-efficient for early hulls if you can outclass your opponent techwise (the two places i see them being possible are shield2 (defector?) vs. mass drivers, and shield3 (plasma shield?) vs lasers).

This is based on evaluation i did years ago, so things may have changed (or i could just be wrong).
If you have two systems are about the same level and one makes balancing more easy - I strongly prefer taking the easier one.
We should not have a complexity in the system we can not reason about.

And if we can reason about our battles (no matter the complexity; e.g. using a combat simulator) these are always "predictable" and should be available in my opinion to AI and players before battle. Also there should be the element of surprise by misjudging which vessels will participate in a given battle.

The "complexity" should be in deciding the investment what fleets to build and to how to manouver your fleet so that you get the battles you will win at acceptable losses.
That makes sense. I still think we need an idea of what the overall system you have in mind is in order to see why your system accomplishes this.
If you think estimating cost efficiency of current battle system is not hard - I would love to see your analysis in the other thread; because claiming that does not make it true.
Yes, i have planned to post in that thread about fighters when i'm able.
Regarding the poll I am confused - there are now 2 choices for "something different" without posts really explaining what they want (or maybe alleryn did say but i can not "see the tree in the woods").

And maybe I did state my question in a bad way, but "i do want a real combat system not this stop-gap one" "i want to model evasive manouvers and distance and combat speed" are not "something different" because its like saying "No I want something different - i want a Ferrari" - because it does not provide me with usable alternative on a similar scale of change.

So please explain (again?) what you want. Or should I add an option/or interpret those two as "Either way would be ok?"
I guess i'm saying i don't 100% understand the question. I don't think it makes sense to answer the question 'in a vacuum'. We need a whole system to evaluate (or multiple systems amongst which to choose).

If the question is "should we keep everything the same but have ships stop targeting fighters (here i mean ships target ships/planets, then if none target fighters)", then my answer is "no, then no one would build fighters anymore. Let's just leave it as is".
If the question is "should we change x,y, and z, and have ships stop targeting fighters", then my answer is "what are x,y, and z?".

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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#6 Post by Morlic »

Fighters as cannonfodder would be fine with me if they were actually removed as combat targets after being shot down. Since they are removed at the end of turn, they can block an arbitrary number of shots. A interceptor carrier with a single launch bay launches 4 interceptors per turn. This means a 20% chance to hit the ship or in other words, the number of enemy weapons is on average effectively reduced by 80%. Adding 4 empty hulls to the fleet for the same cover on the first turn is a totally stupid mechanic as well. Yes, it does increase fleet upkeep. Still, you can just build your e.g. Titans first and then instead of building one more Titan build 50ish empty hulls instead.
Lategame ship designs have very easily (much) more than 250 structure. So Bay+2Interceptor hangars + 4 empty hulls come roughly down to (much) more than 1k "structure equivalent". Seems slightly excessive, doesn't it? Even ignoring the empty hulls exploit and having "only" 2/3 turns of effect leaves you with quite some structure bonus - while adding decent damage as well.

If fighters would only eat a single shot, in the most extreme case they eat all Death Ray shots - so in total (8 shots) a structure equivalent of 200-280. Seems fair and still slot efficient. Flaks/interceptors then also start to make sense to counter fighters because they are cost/slot efficient for multiple shots, reducing the chance of wasting a more expensive Death Ray shot.
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#7 Post by The Silent One »

Morlic wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 6:43 pmFighters as cannonfodder would be fine with me if they were actually removed as combat targets after being shot down. Since they are removed at the end of turn, they can block an arbitrary number of shots.
I was never aware of that. That's terrible.
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#8 Post by Morlic »

Just to clarify/correct myself: When I wrote turn I meant end of combat round/bout.
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#9 Post by The Silent One »

Morlic wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 7:59 pm Just to clarify/correct myself: When I wrote turn I meant end of combat round/bout.
That I misunderstood. Still it would be better if fighters were destroyed "on impact".
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#10 Post by Ophiuchus »

The Silent One wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 8:48 pm
Morlic wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 7:59 pm Just to clarify/correct myself: When I wrote turn I meant end of combat round/bout.
That I misunderstood. Still it would be better if fighters were destroyed "on impact".
Actually i think they are (different to zero structure ships) immediatly removed(?)

Edit:
After skimming the CombatSystem.cpp on my cell phone I would say I misremembered and dead fighters and ships are treated the same
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#11 Post by Ophiuchus »

alleryn wrote:
Ophiuchus wrote:
alleryn wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:44 pmAnti-shield. I don't think shields are currently very useful overall, but i'm still figuring things out. If this is true then serving as a counter to what is itself already mainly a counter-tactic isn't a very attractive role.
Shields should matter. And actually maybe they do. Did anybody try rushing with Organic Hull and mass driver? These are quite low-tech and have good cost efficiency if not going against shields.
I believe the first shield (the one unlocked by Force Field Harmonics) is already cost-inefficient as soon as MD4 is researched (maybe even MD3).
You can only judge the value in the ship designs. A robo hull with 2 Zortrium and 2 Lasers and a defense grid (shield-3) is about 20% more cost effective than the next best thing on that level (basic or organic or robo hull with tech up to lasers and zortrium) against MD4 (even against damage 7).

Next best thing is actually organic hull 2 Zortrium and 1 mass driver. Thats why I asked for early rush with organics (though it takes about 8 turns for research, 8 turns for the incubator and 3 turns for building ships; you can have your first organic ship with zortrium in turn 19). That design has really good numbers so it might sense to build a respectable fleet with that - for such a fleet the roboshield would be a good counter. But that is really small niche I think.

Outteching with shield-3 is not really practical is it? Shield tech alone costs 100RP and lasers only 60 RP which you can upgrade after building the ships (+40 +60) so by the time your fleet is ready and in enemy space the enemy is prepared.
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#12 Post by alleryn »

I'm lost.
Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:55 am You can only judge the value in the ship designs. A robo hull with 2 Zortrium and 2 Lasers and a defense grid (shield-3) is about 20% more cost effective than the next best thing on that level (basic or organic or robo hull with tech up to lasers and zortrium) against MD4 (even against damage 7).
I'm not sure how you are computing this efficiency. Here's my calculationi for how robo hull with Zort x 3 + Laser is more efficient than Zort x2 + Laser x2 + Def Grid (i think there is probably something more efficient like Organic but..):
Zort x 3 + Laser: (my costs are with .6x multiplier in game rules like multiplayer server. I also have a little fleet upkeep, but it should be close enough)
dmg = 11
structure = 58 (i guess i should do the min_hits_to_die thing, but this is fine too i think, it doesn't affect it much anyways)
effective structure = 58 (since no dmg reduction)
cost = 52.8 PP
efficiency = (dmg*eff structure)/cost^2 = .229

Zort x 2 + Laser x 2 + Def Grid:
dmg = 22
structure = 47
effective structure = 47x11/8 (we are expecting to be hit by lasers so each hit is doing 8 dmg instead of 11). We could multiply this factor in somewhere else (like multiply other ship dmg by 8/11 instead, it would give same result, ratio-wise between the two ships) = 64.625
cost = 85.2
efficiency = (dmg* eff structure)/cost^2 = .196
Outteching with shield-3 is not really practical is it? Shield tech alone costs 100RP and lasers only 60 RP which you can upgrade after building the ships (+40 +60) so by the time your fleet is ready and in enemy space the enemy is prepared.
I don't understand this bit about outteching with shield-3. Yes i don't think it's possible. I don't think i've ever built a shield-3 since i find it's already cost ineffective after MD4. I could be wrong about MD4 maybe. I haven't done this calculation in a while. The value for lasers was closer than i expected, so i'm probably misremembering.
Last edited by alleryn on Mon Sep 16, 2019 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ophiuchus
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#13 Post by Ophiuchus »

alleryn wrote:I believe the first shield (the one unlocked by Force Field Harmonics) is already cost-inefficient as soon as MD4 is researched (maybe even MD3).
Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:55 am You can only judge the value in the ship designs. A robo hull with 2 Zortrium and 2 Lasers and a defense grid (shield-3) is about 20% more cost effective than the next best thing on that level (basic or organic or robo hull with tech up to lasers and zortrium) against MD4 (even against damage 7).
You are talking lasers damage 11 in your calculation not MD 4 damage 6
(With your cost it is 0,285)
Last edited by Ophiuchus on Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#14 Post by Ophiuchus »

alleryn wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:27 pmIf the question is "should we keep everything the same but have ships stop targeting fighters (here i mean ships target ships/planets, then if none target fighters)", then my answer is "no, then no one would build fighters anymore. Let's just leave it as is".
If the question is "should we change x,y, and z, and have ships stop targeting fighters", then my answer is "what are x,y, and z?".
Fair enough. I should include the balancing.

Roughly:
  • remove the smokescreen feature (nerf)
  • increase capacity/launchrates and/or damage (buff)
  • maybe making shields more cost effective (indirect buff)
It will take me some time to do the analysis for finding numbers/detailed changes.

Also you are missing one of the most important expect of carriers. You can start building from early game and just upgrade your fleet by researching better weapon tech. This is great for good research/bad pp empires.

Also why such micro changes - i am doing this as balancing pass (and create better AI) for 0.4.9
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alleryn
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Re: Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

#15 Post by alleryn »

Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Sep 16, 2019 12:55 pm You are talking lasers damage 11 in your calculation not MD 4 damage 6
Well yes i am, where i quoted you about lasers....
alleryn wrote: Mon Sep 16, 2019 10:13 am
Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:55 am You can only judge the value in the ship designs. A robo hull with 2 Zortrium and 2 Lasers and a defense grid (shield-3) is about 20% more cost effective than the next best thing on that level (basic or organic or robo hull with tech up to lasers and zortrium) against MD4 (even against damage 7).
I'm not sure how you are computing this efficiency. Here's my calculation (snip)
Edit: maybe i don't understand what you were saying here? Why would you be comparing one laser ship to one MD4 ship??? I guess i'll just strikout my posts and leave what i have to say on this topic for the other thread on shield efficiency.

Edit2: okay i see what you were saying now. I misread you.

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