Defense Supply Mechanic

[Cyborg]

Do not approve of anything in this thread at all. Goes back to a fundamental game change of artificially creating a multitude of war fronts when in fact it's perfectly reasonable to try and create chokepoints. I do not like forced game styles. It also seems to willfully circumvent certain map types.

This is one reason why other games use playable races. We don't necessarily have to because we have modifiers and plots, but recognize this is totally against The Art of War if you're just going to make the terrain level everywhere. If you guys want to get your planets harassed everywhere, just turn on marauders and/or remove all warp gates from adjacent planets and see what happens.

If you want to do this, make it a modifier like the shields, and I will happily assent to any kind of crazy thing you want.

[chemical_art]

Do not approve of anything in this thread at all. Goes back to a fundamental game change of artificially creating a multitude of war fronts when in fact it's perfectly reasonable to try and create chokepoints. I do not like forced game styles. It also seems to willfully circumvent certain map types.

This is one reason why other games use playable races. We don't necessarily have to because we have modifiers and plots, but recognize this is totally against The Art of War if you're just going to make the terrain level everywhere. If you guys want to get your planets harassed everywhere, just turn on marauders and/or remove all warp gates from adjacent planets and see what happens.

If you want to do this, make it a modifier like the shields, and I will happily assent to any kind of crazy thing you want.

This highlights a point I've been thinking about most of this thread. I want this to NOT be a nerf. That just sucks.  The goal must be to make the other options more attractive.

Turret boosts do that well, but I don't want them to be uneligible for other boosts. The appeal of the military station is that it boosts those turrets. I already catch myself using econ stations over them because of how useful overall econ is, so to nerf the military station just makes them almost useless, since fleet balls would be better covered with starships for the K cost.

[Eternaly_Lost]

EDIT:
Another relevant question.
How much is mobility worth?
That is, if a unit where to lose its mobility, generally speaking how much increase to DPS and/or durability and/or range would that unit need to receive to still be considered worthwhile?
Or inversely, generally speaking, how much DPS and/or durability and/or range would you be willing to pay to give a stationary unit mobility?

When it comes to range, if it mobile, I am happy if it has enough to often shoot at it target. If it is not mobile, it really needs to be at least 2x father range then it average target range otherwise it too easy to find things that can kit it to death, ideally I would be looking for closer to 4x for things that can't move.

Health is not as important, but it should be a lot tougher then something that can move. If I decide to spend limited resources on it, it has to last or be more useful then other things. Sitting in a planet occasionally shooting at the AI is not as useful as a fleet that can do the same. Plus if the fleet is going to die, I can retreat out. Turrets can't retreat so it either win and keep the system, or lose and lose the system. There is no middle ground of keep the turret alive and able to do stuff and lose the system. It very much a one or the other.

Damage however, has to be high. It can't move, it should kill a few small targets that get near it, and higher levels ones should not matter if it the type it designed for or not. If you don't send at least 20 ships at it, it going to walk out the winner. Maybe a winner that is almost dead, but a winner.


All in all, Turrets don't have enough firepower or range or shot speed to be worth it outside of a mass turret ball. And Shot speed matters a lot. I have often see my raid starships shoot at a target, that then gets another 3 shots off killing my Command station in a system with the last one, when the first volley would have killed it had they been faster.

[TechSY730]

[...]

When it comes to range, if it mobile, I am happy if it has enough to often shoot at it target. If it is not mobile, it really needs to be at least 2x father range then it average target range otherwise it too easy to find things that can kit it to death, ideally I would be looking for closer to 4x for things that can't move.

OK, so 2x to 4x range compared to a fleet ship of a similar purpose?
Most turrets seem to be on the low side of that range, but still decent range. A moderate boost in range to the other turrets may be in order, but for the most part, I am happy with their ranges.
Two turrets that seem to flunk this test are lightning and flak turrets. IIRC, Lightning turrets only have a slightly higher range than electric shuttles, and flak turrets actually have a worse range than grenade launchers.

Health is not as important, but it should be a lot tougher then something that can move. If I decide to spend limited resources on it, it has to last or be more useful then other things. Sitting in a planet occasionally shooting at the AI is not as useful as a fleet that can do the same. Plus if the fleet is going to die, I can retreat out. Turrets can't retreat so it either win and keep the system, or lose and lose the system. There is no middle ground of keep the turret alive and able to do stuff and lose the system. It very much a one or the other.

Can you give me propsed "target ratio" for turret cap durablity to a similar fleet ship cap durability like you did for range?
Anyways, although cap heath of turrets is currently much better than cap heath of fleet ships, it seems like it isn't quite enough to make up for their lack of mobility.

Damage however, has to be high. It can't move, it should kill a few small targets that get near it, and higher levels ones should not matter if it the type it designed for or not. If you don't send at least 20 ships at it, it going to walk out the winner. Maybe a winner that is almost dead, but a winner.

Again, can you give me some numbers about how turrets and a similar fleet ship DPS should ratio with each other?

In any case, I would fully agree that right now, the ratio is too small, even though it is currently > 1. Right now, average turret cap DPS / average fleet ship cap DPS seems to be between 4x and 5x. That is not enough. As both GUDare and I stated, lack of mobility needs a LOT of DPS to make up for it.

All in all, Turrets don't have enough firepower or range or shot speed to be worth it outside of a mass turret ball. And Shot speed matters a lot. I have often see my raid starships shoot at a target, that then gets another 3 shots off killing my Command station in a system with the last one, when the first volley would have killed it had they been faster.

Agreed. I'm just trying to see what people think the "balance targets" for turrets should be when compared to fleet ships.

EDIT: I am not against a turret trading one aspect for more of another or both of the others. Like, I could live with a short range turret if it had plenty of HP and DPS to make up for it. Just be aware that the more you "lopside" their stats, the more specialized they get, and specialized units can very easily become too specialized to be useful.

[chemical_art]

How chaotic would it be to make MK III turrets take 10x as long to build, but get 5 speed and the ability to jump wormholes?

...

Is it possible to have any possible mechanic where a shot from a unit on one end of a wormhole in some way effects something on the other end of wormhole (through shooting into wormhole?)

[TechSY730]

How about something REALLY crazy.

We already encountered issues with "mega-chokepoints" hampering the depth of the game, with AI turrets. AI's used to pile on turrets leading to similar sorts of degnerate situations without any sort of way to turn defense to offense when needed. For this reasons (and several others), turrets for AIs were eliminated and guardians were introduced.

Now we are facing a similar situation with humans. Why not a similar solution?

Just completely get rid of immobile military turrets (except maybe snipers, though maybe also get rid of some non-military ones, like tractors). Replace them with human guardians.

To prevent them from becoming bascially like starships, maybe:
They can be built directly from command stations/mobile builders, or at least there is a high ship cap, cheap and easy to defend structure that can build them.
They would be able to use wormholes.
They would inflict half DPS when outside of supply, to encourage that they are meant primarily for defense.
They would take 1.5x to 2x damage when on an enemy planet, and another 1.5x when not in supply, also to emphasize that they are primarily defense units.
There would be a new option that would basically be "Cowardly guardians", where it does the opposite of "Brave starships" for gaurdians, even though they are mobile military, when this is checked, they would act as if they were turrets in terms of selection behavior.
Some sort of auto-rebuild mechanism, such that if a guardian was lost on a planet, one dies, and there is something that can build human guardians on that planet, it would automatically be queued on that planet. There would a control option to turn that off so you could manage it through "standard" means like loop build + garrison control option.

Again, crazy idea, so crazy I would not support it, but it would solve many of the concerns here.

How chaotic would it be to make MK III turrets take 10x as long to build, but get 5 speed and the ability to jump wormholes?

...

Is it possible to have any possible mechanic where a shot from a unit on one end of a wormhole in some way effects something on the other end of wormhole (through shooting into wormhole?)

This is another idea, instead of gutting turrets, make the highest mark act sort of like a human guardian as proposed above.

[keith.lamothe]

How chaotic would it be to make MK III turrets take 10x as long to build, but get 5 speed and the ability to jump wormholes?

I thought we already had space tanks.

Sorry.

I don't mind the ability, but it would introduce a lot of bugs probably as there's a ton of places in the code where turrets are assumed to be immobile.  And 5 speed is pretty brutal to do anything much with.  The "turret transport" idea that floated around a bit earlier would be better, I think; basically an in-game one-use construction template: flash a group of turrets into the thing, move it, unload, and they all pop out in the same relative positions as they went in.  Faster, fewer bugs.  It's basically another variant of the "military builder" idea floating towards the top of the mantis voting that I've been trying to figure out how to work in somehow (that's what I mean when I say I want folks to be able to use turrets in offensive settings).

Is it possible to have any possible mechanic where a shot from a unit on one end of a wormhole in some way effects something on the other end of wormhole (through shooting into wormhole?)

... Possible?  Yea, barely.  Am I going to bring that much pain upon myself?  No

Something that just generates warhead-like units is fine, but that's not suitable for anything with a remotely high cap.

[keith.lamothe]

Just completely get rid of immobile military turrets (except maybe snipers, though maybe also get rid of some non-military ones, like tractors). Replace them with human guardians.

I appreciate wild ideas as they help stir things up, but no, that's not going to happen

[TechSY730]

Just completely get rid of immobile military turrets (except maybe snipers, though maybe also get rid of some non-military ones, like tractors). Replace them with human guardians.

I appreciate wild ideas as they help stir things up, but no, that's not going to happen

When I said crazy, I meant CRAZY. I probably should of said "so insane not even I agree with it".

[PokerChen]

Geez, aren't all these supply mechanics getting too crazy? We could just insert a fire-control tower that says:
 "Attack boost (and/or reload time boost) for up to 10 turrets within 3000 range. Limit of 2 per planet and does not work for Heavy Beam Turrets. Stacks with Military Command Station boosts".
Nudge the stats of those non-heavy beam turrets down slightly, perhaps down 5%, and increase some of the range so that basic/laser turrets can get a couple of shots off before the AI pounds them into dust.  A structure like this encourages placing some defenses on satellite worlds around command stations.

As far as I can tell, if you wanted to chokepoint a planet a significant chunk of the damage comes from the full-cap of HBCs anyway (one needs some way to take down those mark-V starships)...

I'm also inclined to support the Viral Shredder-type application by increasing costs past cap, but the turret cap will need to be small per planet however...

[keith.lamothe]

Geez, aren't all these supply mechanics getting too crazy? We could just insert a fire-control tower

Not all of them are that crazy, someone's already suggested something like that tower, etc.


In any event, the general feedback indicates it's a good idea to shelve any plans remotely along the lines I was going.  There are a few buffs and new unit ideas worth retaining individually, but there are also simply more obviously-good-for-the-game things that need doing.

Thanks to everyone for chiming in   Feel free to continue, of course.

[Cyborg]

I think that the red golem, green golem, blue golem, black golem, yellow golem, and the pink golem should burst forth out of the galaxy and come together to form Golemtron: Scourge of the Universe, making a beeline for the chokepoints and wrecking the place. Pablo, we need music for this, something that loops over 30 seconds.

But seriously, less crazy idea, transports get tractor beams that can drag defensive units to different planets.

[dotjd]

Easy solution: turn hybrids on.
Easier solution: stop playing on X maps or other maps with really good chokepoints.  If you play X worlds solely to get 30 planet clusters with one point of entry, or you sit at mapgen for 2 hours clicking over and over until you get the one realistic map that gives you 6 planets and 1-2 points of entry (guilty as charged), you don't get to complain. =p
Easiest solution: turn Beachheads on or the difficulty up.
Rebalancing solution: give hybrids the ability to rebuild guard posts and/or command stations, or otherwise give the AI more ways to recover from aggressive neutering (warp gate guardians migrating to neutered planets, things like that.  be evil).
Stronger rebalancing solution: raise the AIP cost of destroying warp gates relative to AI command stations.  7 and 13, 10 and 10, something like that.

An unavoidable conclusion of any proposal to specifically nerf large clusters of turrets is that you are making it easier for the AI to conquer planets, full stop.  Would you fight a wave of bombers by sending 5 fighters at a time, or would you send a cap?  Firepower simply multiplies when clustered together, and splitting those turrets up over multiple planets is a straight nerf.  Defense in depth is a fantasy in the game at the moment, and an artificial mechanic to break it will likely end up being just another upkeep to pay, and we already have some of those.  See GUDare's latest road to 10/10 game, where he doubled up on reactors on each planet because if he took more planets he wouldn't be able to defend them or justify the AIP cost.  If chokepoints are going to be nerfed it should be on a strategic level, i.e. making it harder to create one in the first place, by giving the player more reason to conquer new planets or expose new fronts (core shield gens, energy), giving the AI more ways to threaten the player from different vectors, or the player fewer ways to completely neuter AI worlds.  That way, if you do manage to create a chokepoint, you get a reward.

I do get the impression that a lot of people really like carving out a set of territory that's theirs, and which they can depend on and which they're mostly safe in.  This is one of those things where it's good that the game has a lot of options.  Even though X maps are the most boring thing I've ever had the misfortune of playing on. >_>

P.S.  I've always been curious.  GUDare, is GU a clan tag?

[Wanderer]

P.S.  I've always been curious.  GUDare, is GU a clan tag?

Heh, no.  It's actually been a screen name since I was fifteen and Gee, You Dare? (@aol.com) sounded really cool and I hate putting numbers after my screen-tags.  It's lived with me since whenever I can't get other preferred screen names (Wanderer in particular).  Not sure I even checked it's availability here.

Edit: Heh, thanks for reminding me about that Dotjd.   Wanderer it is.  Hey all.  Same nut, new name.

[dotjd]

I asked because I vaguely remember there being a clan tag like that in a game I used to play.  Guess either I misremembered or it's coincidence, heh.