Author Topic: A modest suggestion: hull types removal  (Read 22672 times)

Offline Draco18s

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #15 on: August 30, 2016, 12:12:32 pm »
Also, for what it's worth, you can create triangle setups without any sort of damage bonus at all.

The doodad I did up in flash (proc gen units) and now can't find a link to (and my local copy is on a hard drive that isn't plugged in...) showed that well enough.  I had no armor types, no damage types, no special abilities and I could get a triangle set in under 15 seconds more often than not.  Mind, the win margin was like 10% most of the time.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #16 on: August 30, 2016, 01:09:37 pm »
Also, for what it's worth, you can create triangle setups without any sort of damage bonus at all.

The doodad I did up in flash (proc gen units) and now can't find a link to (and my local copy is on a hard drive that isn't plugged in...) showed that well enough.  I had no armor types, no damage types, no special abilities and I could get a triangle set in under 15 seconds more often than not.  Mind, the win margin was like 10% most of the time.
That's exactly my point.

You don't need a forced and artificial method to do this when it can all be balanced organically through simple mechanics that are already in the game. I have no idea how anyone thinks this would somehow be more complicated.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2016, 02:32:06 pm by Wingflier »
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Offline Draco18s

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #17 on: August 30, 2016, 01:16:41 pm »
It's "more complicated" because if you have two sets of ship stats....
Code: [Select]
Abitrary Unit A
5x3 damage, reload 4 (DPS 3.75), AP 5, armor 0, hp 60

Miscellaneous Unit 2
30x1 damage, reload 8 (DPS 3.75), AP 0, armor 6, hp 25

Which one is going to kill the other first?
Can you figure it out without doing the math?

Offline tadrinth

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #18 on: August 30, 2016, 02:06:08 pm »
I think if the hull bonuses were much more consistent for each ammo type, it would be a lot easier to remember.  IE, it's weird that missile frigates counter fighters, but missile turrets counter bombers, and missile modules on champions counter structures. 

The good thing about the hull bonus system is that it allows for a web of complex hard counters, but you can still figure out what counters what by comparing the two tooltips. 

I'm strongly against trying to do some kind of organic counter system; the current system may not be easy to remember but it's obvious when you have tooltips.  Fighters being high evasion and frigates being high accuracy is great, but now you have to extend that organically across what, 50 fleet ship types?  Now you need 50 different organic mechanics that interact to produce hard counters. 

Keep hull bonuses, but increase the consistency of the bonuses for an ammo type.

Ideally, also include a tool that shows you the network of what-counters-what, with ships clustered by class somehow.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #19 on: August 30, 2016, 02:14:38 pm »
Keep hull bonuses, but increase the consistency of the bonuses for an ammo type.
That's an excellent idea, IMO.

I'm personally very annoyed with ammo immunities. Casting more coherency here would be nice too, and having Zero Multipliers on specific Hull Types (Command Grade, etc) would do that perfectly, I think.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #20 on: August 30, 2016, 03:02:40 pm »
Quote
I'm strongly against trying to do some kind of organic counter system; the current system may not be easy to remember but it's obvious when you have tooltips.  Fighters being high evasion and frigates being high accuracy is great, but now you have to extend that organically across what, 50 fleet ship types?  Now you need 50 different organic mechanics that interact to produce hard counters. 
I never said anything about evasion and accuracy, now you're overcomplicating it by adding mechanics that weren't there before.

This triangle (which already exists) would be established at the beginning: Fighter>Bomber>Frigate>Fighter

Fighters in general are numerous, have middling armor penetration, and are cost-effective. They are the most well-rounded aspect of your fleet. (Sci-fi reference)

Bombers have high penetration, are less numerous than fighters, but do massive damage to a single target each shot. They counter the biggest threats in the game. (Sci-fi reference)

Frigates are the least numerous, have no armor penetration, but are themselves well-armored, and fire a volley of low damage missiles to counter multiple small threats.

Now that these 3 archetypes have been established, all ships can be modeled (and tagged) with this in mind. It's simple, intuitive, and easy to understand.

This allows for bonus ships to actually be unique and interesting instead of "This one is good because it has a bonus against Heavy!" "This one is good because it has a bonus against Structural!"

Since the archetypes are already established, the diversity and quality of the bonus ships can be based on actual interesting things like cloak, radar dampening, aoe immunity, tractor beam immunity, regeneration, reprocessor, parasite, armor dissolving, maw, and a ton of other inspired mechanics which are already in the game.

Like I said, both Laser Gatling and Space Planes are technically fighters, but the way they perform their roles is vastly different.

edit: There are literally ships in the game whose only purpose is to counter the least-encountered hull types (Acid Sprayer for example). Only veterans are even going to know how to make use of these, and even vets don't use them that much because of how rarely you encounter them. This could be designed so much better.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2016, 03:19:43 pm by Wingflier »
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Offline tadrinth

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #21 on: August 30, 2016, 07:50:26 pm »
I never said anything about evasion and accuracy, now you're overcomplicating it by adding mechanics that weren't there before.
Whoops, sorry. Kahuna suggested that, lost track of who was suggesting what.

I don't think you can get as much unit variety out of just varying armor + armor pen as the current setup, but you're arguing that's actually a good thing, because having a unit that's interesting only for its bonuses... is not very interesting.

I dunno that I agree with that, though.  I really like Anti-armor ships, not because of their armor pen, but because they're a fighter type (light hulls, anti-polycrystal bonuses) crossed with a bomber (anti-structural/heavy bonuses).  Triangle-wise, they're a fighter, but they can kill forcefields... and if there's an anti-polycrystal guard post under a FF, you don't want bombers, but you DO want anti-armors.  That's interesting, to me, that you can have a ship which violates the usual triangle properties like that. And they shoot missiles, so they also interact with missile-immune units and Weasels.

Also, Acid Sprayers are a little esoteric, but they hard-counter bombers. I'll admit that countering bombers is more useful to the AI, though. Reprocessors are a way cooler version.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #22 on: August 31, 2016, 12:25:00 am »
Quote
I don't think you can get as much unit variety out of just varying armor + armor pen as the current setup, but you're arguing that's actually a good thing, because having a unit that's interesting only for its bonuses... is not very interesting.
I certainly wouldn't suggest only varying armor and armor penetration. I mean I've suggested twice in this thread the difference between Spy Planes and Laser Gatlings as two very different types of fighters. Spy Planes are much less numerous, but individually more powerful, also having Cloak and Radar Dampening meaning that they are decent at going behind enemy lines, taking out priority targets, or bombers before they become a threat. They are however, significantly expensive.

Laser Gatlings are very cheap, quick to build, extremely numerous, have decent stats, and thrive by simply overwhelming the enemy with numbers and high DPS. However, they are highly vulnerable to area of effect attacks.

I just gave two different examples that both belong to the archetype of Fighter, who both have the same role (countering bombers) but who do so in completely different ways, and with vastly different strengths and weaknesses.

I do not see how adding arbitrary hull types makes this equation any more interesting, all it does is make things a heck of a lot more confusing.

Anti-armor ships may have the fighter hull, but in every other way they are basically long-range bombers. They're relatively slow, their sustained DPS isn't that high, and they counter things with a lot of armor. They also don't really perform that well against things without much armor...so it's a bomber. I mean giving it the fighter hull doesn't really do anything except make its role confusing. Which is why when people say that the hull types system makes things easier I ask them to clarify their point.

In any system, you should attempt to achieve a goal with as much simplicity and elegance as possible. All hull types do is make things more complicated, more difficult for new players, and creates massive balance problems that can not (and have not after 10 years) be resolved.

Quote
Also, Acid Sprayers are a little esoteric, but they hard-counter bombers. I'll admit that countering bombers is more useful to the AI, though. Reprocessors are a way cooler version.
Then you don't need them. You've already given a better alternative, and there are tons of other bonus ships that you'd much rather have for their strengths and abilities rather than a bonus ship that does only one thing well.

Fighters in a classic Sci-fi Universe perform pretty dang well against everything but the most heavily armored of targets. Their well-roundedness makes them the backbone of almost any fleet. That's why when you base bonus ships on archetypes, not on hull types, you get a much more interesting roster.

There are also archetypes that don't fit into any of the 3 triangles that I haven't mentioned yet, like Support ships. Things like Tractor platforms and Shield Bearers. This is an entirely new archetype that doesn't fit the triangle, so not everything is limited to the triangle anyway.

« Last Edit: August 31, 2016, 12:28:53 am by Wingflier »
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Offline tadrinth

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #23 on: August 31, 2016, 08:02:18 pm »
Hull type bonuses themselves are super simple: deal 6x damage.   

The complication comes from the sheer number of hull types and bonuses, and the fact that while there ARE patterns, those patterns are hard to pull out of the noise. This page in the wiki actually groups the ships by category, though it isn't up to date: https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Ships_and_Structures  There are brawlers, tanks, aoe, utility, assault, ranged, kite, sniper, assassination, suicide, teleporters, buffers, debuffers, and reclaimers.  Some categories are associated with particular hull types; stealth ships tend to be Refractive hulls, for example.  . 

If you want a Fighter/Bomber/Missile Frigate triangle, you can do it organically with armor + armor pen + reload + ship cap.  But, is it easy to tell looking at a fighter how good it is against a bomber vs against a missile frigate?  If you decide to increase the ship cap for laser gatlings, how much more armor pen will they need?

On the other hand, if you just threw out all the hull types and bonuses except light, polycrystal, artillery, and structural, I think you could get a network of X-counters-Y that's isomorphic to your proposal, and it would be far easier to get the numbers of that network to match up with your implementation than vice versa. 

I would argue that the hull type system, with all its complexity, has actually done better over 10 years of development than the armor system.  The last unit designed to specifically interact with armor was the Spire Armor Rotter back in Light of the Spire. By contrast, every expansion since then has added at least one new unit with significant hull type bonuses. 

Yes, the existing system is super complicated.  I think that complexity DOES add a lot of gameplay value, and I think the abstract nature of the system is extremely powerful from a game design and balance perspective.  It could be more simpler, more consistent, or better explained; any of those would help new players.  On the other hand, new players would ideally be exposed to just the most basic ship types early on anyway, with the rest added gradually. 

What balance problems do you think have been around for 10 years?  Laser gatlings? Laser gatlings are EXACTLY the fighter archetype you propose: "Fighters in general are numerous, have middling armor penetration, and are cost-effective. They are the most well-rounded aspect of your fleet. "  That's a laser gatling: high cap, some armor pen, cheap, and small bonuses.  IIRC, every time they've come up the dev response has been 'I know they're terrible but I don't have any good ideas for how to fix them yet'.

If you look at the trend in ship caps... all the high cap ships are from the original game.  Everything since then seems to have trended to lower and lower caps, and eventually to bonus starships which are the ultimate low cap units.  None of the high cap units are particularly popular, and they've often been some of the worst-performing ship classes in the game.  I don't think having fighters be high cap is essential to your design, but it doesn't bode well for that part of it (note that the current triangle ships all have the same cap... I think that's telling). 


Offline Wingflier

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #24 on: August 31, 2016, 09:06:40 pm »
@tandrith - You made some good points, I'll try to respond to all of them.

I agree that the current armor system is busted, and for the most part even the developers have admitted it needs a rework badly for a long time. I would propose something much simpler and more intuitive than what we have now to create the game's triangle balance without hull types.

Ships would have an Armor level and an Armor penetration level. There are 10 levels.

Each level of armor gives it 10% resistance to damage, with level 10 giving it 100% resistance to all damage. Each level of Armor penetration is subtracted from the Armor value to determine how what percentage of damage it does.

This is easy, intuitive, and can be explained quickly in the tutorial.

For example, if a Bomber has 5 Armor and a Frigate has 0 Armor Penetration, then the Frigate's attacks will be doing 50% reduced damage to the Bombers. However, if a Fighter has 3 Armor penetration, then that Armor penetration will be reduced by the Bomber's 5 Armor value, resulting in a 20% damage loss, which the Fighters care little about since their DPS is already so high.

However, if a Frigate has 7 Armor, then Fighters are doing only 60% of full damage, and this is much more significant.

Bombers get 10 Armor penetration because their whole role is taking out heavily armored targets like Starships, but they also work against Frigates for this reason.

So Armor value and Armor penetration becomes a statistic just like DPS, speed, health, range, fleet size, and so on.

Quote
What balance problems do you think have been around for 10 years?  Laser gatlings? Laser gatlings are EXACTLY the fighter archetype you propose: "Fighters in general are numerous, have middling armor penetration, and are cost-effective. They are the most well-rounded aspect of your fleet. "  That's a laser gatling: high cap, some armor pen, cheap, and small bonuses.  IIRC, every time they've come up the dev response has been 'I know they're terrible but I don't have any good ideas for how to fix them yet'.
Laser Gatlings are terrible BECAUSE of the Hull Type system. Pure DPS in high numbers means very little in the Hull Type system if its bonuses suck, which is one of the reasons Fighters are so underwhelming in the current system. Because no matter how much you BUFF THEM, they're just glorified Bomber killers and that's it. Because the Hull bonuses they have are fairly useless otherwise.

However, when DPS, especially the kind of DPS you can accomplish like in a huge swarm of Laser Gatlings, becomes valuable on its own because the Hull Types system has been removed, suddenly you have an extremely powerful unit which is good against most things.

However, Laser Gatlings still have their weaknesses. They are weak to area of effect which many Guardians have, and also things like Electric Shuttles and Grenade Launchers. They are also weak to ships which shoot many projectiles like MLRS and the equivalent Guardian.

So the question is, why would you want the current system, when so many ships have the Laser Gatling syndrome? I haven't heard a good answer to this yet. It's forced design, it doesn't even make sense. Why would a Bomber do 10x as much damage to a specific hull type. I can understand like maybe 50% more damage, maybe even double damage, but 10x the damage? Let's be real. This is the concept around which almost every ship is designed.

Quote
If you look at the trend in ship caps... all the high cap ships are from the original game.  Everything since then seems to have trended to lower and lower caps, and eventually to bonus starships which are the ultimate low cap units.  None of the high cap units are particularly popular, and they've often been some of the worst-performing ship classes in the game.  I don't think having fighters be high cap is essential to your design, but it doesn't bode well for that part of it (note that the current triangle ships all have the same cap... I think that's telling). 
The reason low caps ships are better often times isn't because they have lower caps, but because they have an immunity to absolutely everything, where the high cap ships have an immunity to absolutely nothing.

Low cap ships often have to an immunity to AoE, instakill, parasite attacks, snipers, tractor beams, maws, attrition, and everything else under the Sun, simply because they're low cap. Well of course this is going to be superior to high cap ships which have an immunity to nothing.

But here's the thing, when you balance ships based on archetype (Fighter, Bomber, Frigate), suddenly you can give out those immunities sparingly, and in a way that individualizes a ship's unique strengths and weaknesses. Because you're no longer basing around Hull Types, but around Archetypes, you have a lot more creative license to give immunities where necessary to create a diverse roster without making specific ships overpowered.

So for example, if you give a specific numerous Fighter-type immunity to aoe, it is now no longer defeated by its easiest counter, and it creates an entirely new dynamic which wasn't in the game before.

If you give a Bomber-type immunity to tractor beams, it now can do something no other Bomber can do, and sneak past enemy wormholes to take out priority targets much more easily than its counterparts. The possibilities are endless.

Now instead of just throwing out immunities willy nilly, you can give them out very intentionally to each type of ship to create a certain profound effect. Because Hull Types are no longer a factor, this effect will be felt much more deeply.

Quote
But, is it easy to tell looking at a fighter how good it is against a bomber vs against a missile frigate?
This is a good question, but generally the stats of any given archetype (Fighter, Bomber, Frigate) will fall within a range. I've already mentioned this before. Fighters are numerous, have no armor, have high DPS, and middling armor penetration. Bombers are less numerous, have some armor, and high armor penetration. Frigates are the least numerous, have heavy armor, no armor penetration, but can take out many small targets easily.

It will be explained in the tutorial (it already is) that Fighters beat Bombers, beat Frigates, beat Fighters, and each ship archetype can be tagged as such to make it easier for new players.

All ships that are created within an archetype will fit into these categories. However, that isn't to say that you are bound to them absolutely. For example, Armor Ships are technically Fighters, but you can give them some Armor (say 3) which makes them much less vulnerable to their counters (Frigates), however their Armor penetration will suffer as a result, given that the Wiki states that they are primarily Anti-Light. These ships counter other Fighters and survive pretty well against Frigates too, even though they are weak against anything with heavy armor.

Well anyway, this system makes vastly more sense than what we have, and the balance would be infinitely better and easier to achieve. The diversity of ships would also go up as well.







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Offline Draco18s

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #25 on: August 31, 2016, 10:42:29 pm »
Actually one of the reasons that high-cap units suffer so much is due to "blob DPS falloff" as individuals die.  A "cap of 1" unit maintains its DPS constant until it dies:
Code: [Select]
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|
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                                       |
                                       |,,,,,,,,

Laser gatlings, and other high-cap ships, that start off with a comparable cap-DPS, but suffer heavy casualties over the course of battle:
Code: [Select]
¯`*·~-.,
        ¯`*·~-.,
                ¯`*·~-.,
                        ¯`*·~-.,
                                ¯`*·~-.,
                                        ¯`*·~-.,
And the area under the curve ends up being far, far less than their DPS and high numbers would otherwise suggest.  The "fix" was for high-cap ships to have larger and larger initial DPS numbers, but it never really makes the impression of ineffectiveness go away.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #26 on: September 01, 2016, 01:24:52 am »
I agree with you Draco, but I have two counterpoints to that:

1. The lower cap units are only able to survive so much longer because they usually have a billion immunities to everything. If low cap units could, for example, be eaten, they would be near totally useless in situations where the enemy had Maw units. If they could be instakilled, they would be near-useless when approaching a planet with ion cannons.

So one of the major reasons low cap units are so hard to kill is that the game's design forces them to have immunities in order for them not to simply be worthless.

2. I agree about the higher cap unit DPS falloff, but one of the reason the higher cap units die so quickly is because of the Hull Type system. High cap units, by their very nature, usually don't have a lot of HP, so when enemy counters have bonuses of 5x, 8x, or more against them, they're just going to freaking melt. It's the sheer absurdity of the Hull Type system that allows these ships to get countered so easily and die so fast, where in a system where there were no Hull Type bonuses, they would last a lot longer since nothing would be doing a billion extra damage to them.

In the system I propose, the Frigates (Fighter counter) actually have the lowest DPS of the triangle, but it's spread out into multiple shots, and since they have heavy armor, win a war of attrition against the Fighters. They don't just kill them instantly, but they win the battle over time through efficiency, not silly Hull Type bonuses that make them do insane damage against them.
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Offline tadrinth

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #27 on: September 01, 2016, 02:13:30 am »
The only low-cap fleet ships with swallow immunity listed are the maw and powerslaver; I'm pretty sure the rest of the spire 5-cap ships can be eaten, making them ideal maw targets. Starships are immune to maws, but starships are balanced quite differently (way more health but less firepower, usually). 

In addition to the extra immunities and the blob-dps falloff, I think there's one other reason low-cap ships feel unusually squishy: the targeting algorithm.  All else being equal, ships seem to prefer to shoot at low health ships (unless they're capable of one-shotting things). Given the option to shoot at fighters or laser gatlings, missile frigates will prefer to shoot at laser gatlings which die in one shot instead of three.  So, even if they actually have equal cap-health, the high cap ship type will need to be rebuilt a lot more often. 

I think you may be underestimating the humble fighter.  It's true that they have bonuses against relatively few hull types.  To compensate, they also have slightly higher DPS and health than bombers or missile frigates... but more importantly they cost 400 metal instead of 1200 or 1600.  They offer a lot of HP per metal, so if something is going to be soaking generic damage, you want it to be the fighters. Hence why they're the fastest and shortest-ranged triangle ship.  Laser gatlings, for comparison, cost twice as much metal per HP. 

suddenly you have an extremely powerful unit which is good against most things.

Which is why Laser Gatlings are terrible and will remain terrible until revamped; if they were buffed to the point of not being terrible, they'd be overpowered because they would work on pretty much everything. Fighters are allowed to be REALLY GOOD at hunting bombers and having lots of hp per metal *because* they're not great otherwise, and because missile frigates wreck them so hard.

AOE effects don't really work as a counter to swarms because AOE effects in AI War always have a target limit (for balance and performance reasons), and that target limit is usually easy to hit when there are fleet ships running around. You would need to have enormous differences in cap size between for AOE to be a good Laser Gatling counter, and that makes balancing things much harder.  Plus which, there's just not a lot of AOE damage ship types.


when so many ships have the Laser Gatling syndrome
Huh?  Laser Gatlings are uniquely terrible. The other high-cap ship types have their issues, but they also have at least 3x bonuses and a unique schtick (tachyon, cloaking, armor piercing, radar dampening).  There are lots of ships with interesting gimmicks, but I'll note that if the gimmick isn't 'do way more damage under X conditions', the ship type usually also has damage bonuses.

For example, if a Bomber has 5 Armor and a Frigate has 0 Armor Penetration,

Omg yay you posted actual numbers.

FIghters: 3 armor pen, 0 armor.
Bombers: 10 armor pen, 5 armor
Frigate: 0 armor pen, 7 armor.

Fighter has 1.0 vs fighter, 0.8 vs bomber, and 0.6 vs Frigate.

Bombers have 1.0 vs fighters, 1.0 vs bombers, and 1.0 vs frigates. 

Frigates have 1.0 vs fighters, 0.5 vs bombers, and 0.3 vs frigates.

If we assume all three triangles have equal damage, then we have: Fighter vs bomber is 0.8 vs 1.0.  Bomber vs Frigate is 1.0 vs 0.5. And Frigate vs Fighter is 1.0 vs 0.6.  Oh dear. Fighters are losing vs Bombers. If we give them 50% more damage, they now win 1.2 to 1.0.  They still only do 0.9 vs frigates which do 1.0 back, so we have a working triangle. 

However, the strongest counter in that triangle is bombers vs frigates is 2x, and the others are 1.2 and 1.11. I dunno how to make those all equal, but I suppose they don't have to be.  Lets pretend I made that work; the average bonus works out to 1.43.

 By contrast, the triangle ships in AI war have a whopping 6x bonus.  Keith and Chris have had 10 years to tune the degree to which the triangle ships counter each other, and I don't know how much they're changed it, but the final bonus is 6x.

That is an ENORMOUS degree for one ship to counter another.  You need to have 7x numerical superiority to beat that bonus, in essence.  That's a big deal when the AI can throw absolutely gigantic numbers your way.  You have to be able to fight smart, and for fighting smart to be able to counter being massively outnumbered. 

By contrast, in your triangle, if the average bonus is 1.43, then if I have twice the ships, the triangle doesn't matter. 

That is also a deathblow to ship variety.  Effective ship bonuses that small will make all the ships feel the same in combat.  Big fat bonuses give ships personality that you can feel in how fast things are dying.  That's the other reason the triangle ship bonuses are so high in AI War.

Your proposal does have the advantage of having a consistent explanation for why X ship is good against Y ship.

However, I think it is harder to balance and makes for a mush of ships that all feel the same.  Even if you can tweak it to create sharp, 6x counters, it will be harder to predict fight outcomes. 

I don't think now is a good time to start prioritizing consistent explanations over quality gameplay.  I like a good explanation, but I love good gameplay. 

Some of it just comes down to personal taste, though, and I can't argue with that.  If Chris can figure out a system that has the clarity and ease of balance of the hull bonus system, but satisfies your preference for an organic, emergent system, then that would be awesome. 

Okay, I really need to pass out, and I probably won't be able to reply further for a few days. Hopefully that at least makes my position clear. 
« Last Edit: September 01, 2016, 11:37:42 am by tadrinth »

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #28 on: September 01, 2016, 09:27:59 am »
This (balance single ship vs high cap ship) is the reason why I am on about consolidation of ships into fleets... capital ships are just flat out better than mostly any other ship type in AI War currently. The base ships aside.

let's face it, combat in AI War is not particularly tactical most of the time, it is certainly at times kinda tactical, but most of the time you just wanna wipe everything out or "get" somewhere and wipe something specific out...  if you had, on the other hand, actual fleets, with sub-fleets (say, each fleet can have x sub-fleets) and a formation that is defined you custom/ie. you can tell the game what subfleet (ie ship-type) is where. Ships in front get hit more often than in the back, big weapons shoot at big ships primarily, but since flagship is in the center of the flagship formation hitting that ship could be a challenge... and each shot would have either some AOE or shield penetration chance. Utility ships could be attached to the fleet to give it the various bonuses.

And what you, say, ask, rightfully, is the point?

Well you could be integrating actual tactical battles into AI War.. you could move your fleets like formations, and the AI would not come face you trickling in via warmhole but warp in an entire battle ready fleet in formation, and it depends on your skills whether your fleet can outlank or outsmart the AI fleets...

But most importantly, it would give you something to actually *do* while entering a planet you wanna wipe out. If we have formations and fleets, suddenly we can have giant laser beams of death shooting at you, that you may wanna avoid by splitting the fleet in 2 and then re-merging it...

It depends on Arcen how far AI War 2 will actually redefine anything of AI War 1... if it's just gonna be AI War 2 with 3d graphics then... yeah, wouldn't be much point to that now would it. AI War 1 is still a perfectly playable game ;p

So minutiae of balance aside, I don't think removing hull types is such an outlandish idea IF it is followed by something that makes hull types concept by design irrelevant, because something better/fluffier/more_fun has been found and implemented.

I still think in a RTS, the only defining factor over victory should be MY skill at giving orders. While you could also argue that AI War 2 should be not that indepth in orders... but that begs the question how you gonna fix the inherent balance problems AI War 1 picked up over the expansions (for example, there are just flat out "worst ever" ship types in the game, and some things are just insanely good and useful)
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Offline Pumpkin

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Re: A modest suggestion: hull types removal
« Reply #29 on: September 01, 2016, 11:26:24 am »
EDIT:
Sorry, I was completely out of context. Useless post removed.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2016, 01:55:05 pm by Pumpkin »
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