Mantis Protocall Question

[Ranakastrasz]

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=3736
I made a suggestion recently on fleet management. However, It was rejected immediately, and for good reason.
I also think that I put too much *fluff* on the suggestion, Far more that was necessary to simply fix the main issue.

The issue (That I see, and I was initially trying to address) was that people (including me) tend to take all of their ships and put them into one fleet for some attack. The underlining reason (as I saw it) was that it becomes far more complex very quickly to manage more than one fleet (generally stored via control group) not because of having to switch between them, but rather the high micromanagement cost of replenishing them (with replacement ships)

The suggestion I made however Had far more seriously unnecessary stuff than would be needed to solve this underlining issue, and was complex enough that I managed to even get a nice, fully justified response of

We're not looking to build a whole new game and call it ai war 6.0, sorry.

So I wanted to Redo my suggestion with just the basics, But I am unsure whether to use the *issue is still unresolved* option (and replace the suggestion with the basics of the issue and the suggestion), or create a new thread.

[x4000]

A few notes:

1. We're really short on time.

2. We're not actively making very large changes to AI War at the moment, or even wanting to consider enormous changes, as our attention is elsewhere except for the smaller stuff.

3. In general, "total conversion" type of suggestions that are really changing the fundamental nature of the game are something we reject unless they have some sort of special x factor we just happen to be looking for at the time.

4. Yes, shorter posts are easier for us to read.


But in general, this is game about managing large groups of individual ships, using a control mechanic that is well established.  Tacking on fleet management capabilities would be several months' worth of work at best, and in the end it doesn't lead to the sort of RTS that I tend to enjoy.  It's not that your suggestion is bad -- I think an excellent game could be made along those lines, and probably several have already -- but what you've described would require ripping out around 10% of the codebase and redoing it from scratch.  Or it would be just this tacked on band-aid that would be an endless source of bugs, if we shortcutted it instead of doing it right.


I see what you're trying to address, and I'd like to address that same thing as well, but I think that the way you're going about solving the problem makes it more complex than it needs to be.  This is the sort of issue that's going to require a lot of thought and head-scratching, and really intricate changes to how the build queues and ship caps and all that sort of thing are evaluated.  I've thought about this numerous times in the past, and haven't come up with anything that meets my complexity versus function criteria.  I'm open to suggestions in that vein, but overbroad suggestions that don't take into account all the nuances of the existing game, or which try to replace large swathes of the existing game with new mechanics we'd have to build from scratch, are insta-reject for me.

[keith.lamothe]

I can't speak for Chris, but personally I would suggest starting a forum thread to discuss and identify what the real "itch" is that you're trying to scratch with this and figure out how to achieve that with minimal changes to the actual game design, etc.  Also, to get a feel for the interest level people have.  This topic has come up a few times before.  If I have time I can also jump in and point out what sorts of things are likely or not-likely to happen, etc.  Once a solid idea or two emerge, file a brand new mantis record (with reference to the forum discussion so Chris doesn't execute his "oh look, someone else wants a new game shoved into AIW, close" code path

I don't know if it's a rational thing, but my first mental response to someone reopening an issue I closed for definite cause is to reach for the "Delete" button.  Can't reopen those

Basically rethink, refine, refine, refine, and maybe repost

[x4000]

For instance, it just occurs to me that a simpler way to handle this using existing mechanics might be:

1. Make it so that in a new tab of the CTRLS screen caps of each type of ship (down to the mark level), you can set your desired ship cap for each control group.

2. Make it so that when a space dock is in a control group, as now it will keep putting out ships in that control group.  But if there is a ship cap on that control group for the type it is trying to construct, it will only build up to that ship cap, and will otherwise wait idly.


This gives enormous flexibility in having up to 10 fleets that are self-replenishing from docks of your choosing, with very granular caps of your choosing, without really changing much in the way of core mechanics.  It does have an annoyingly large scrolling tab that will need to be coded in for that to work, but that's only a day or part of a day to accomplish.

If you want to throw that in Mantis, or if folks want to debate the merits, feel free.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I'd thought-out-loud about something like that in the past on one of the release threads, iirc.  With the added wrinkle of a new sort of mobile rally post that would cause newly built ships with the same control group to be given orders to get to the post's planet.  That way in theory you could have a fleet fighting on a planet with reinforcements being automatically produced and routed to the battle.

[x4000]

Actually, you shouldn't need any new mechanics for that, now, due to the combination of:

1. Existing rally posts and ability to set routes from player docks.
2. Player warp gates and THEIR ability to set routes.
3. Neinzul starships, although those are expensive.

Anyway, just between the first two, that should actually handle it now.  When you made those comments before, I'd be surprised if player warp gates were in there, but I don't remember the specific comment.  I vaguely recall us batting it around in the past, though, but I think that was also before the CTRLS screen (so a good ways back).

[Ranakastrasz]

A few notes:

1. We're really short on time.

2. We're not actively making very large changes to AI War at the moment, or even wanting to consider enormous changes, as our attention is elsewhere except for the smaller stuff.

3. In general, "total conversion" type of suggestions that are really changing the fundamental nature of the game are something we reject unless they have some sort of special x factor we just happen to be looking for at the time.

4. Yes, shorter posts are easier for us to read.

4 Good points.

But in general, this is game about managing large groups of individual ships, using a control mechanic that is well established.  Tacking on fleet management capabilities would be several months' worth of work at best, and in the end it doesn't lead to the sort of RTS that I tend to enjoy.  It's not that your suggestion is bad -- I think an excellent game could be made along those lines, and probably several have already -- but what you've described would require ripping out around 10% of the codebase and redoing it from scratch.  Or it would be just this tacked on band-aid that would be an endless source of bugs, if we shortcutted it instead of doing it right.

Hence Why I Agree with the immediate rejection, I went far overboard on the suggestion, most of which is totally unnecessary for what I really wanted, when If I had been thinking, I would have realized that I ought have just suggested the basics, rather than a whole new complex and superfluous system. Also, Having a non-infinite supply of time (something I also ought to know about, as I have done modding for games such as Wc3, and rarely have as much time as I would really like to have available) makes larger suggestions significantly worse than they would otherwise be, due to the large amount of time that would be required to implement them.

I see what you're trying to address, and I'd like to address that same thing as well, but I think that the way you're going about solving the problem makes it more complex than it needs to be.  This is the sort of issue that's going to require a lot of thought and head-scratching, and really intricate changes to how the build queues and ship caps and all that sort of thing are evaluated.  I've thought about this numerous times in the past, and haven't come up with anything that meets my complexity versus function criteria.  I'm open to suggestions in that vein, but overbroad suggestions that don't take into account all the nuances of the existing game, or which try to replace large swathes of the existing game with new mechanics we'd have to build from scratch, are insta-reject for me.

A small part of my suggestion was the *needed* function, while the rest of it was not, and hence required far more complexity than would otherwise exist there. I also think that making it fit better with what is already there would be a good idea, and make it mainly reduce micromanagement, without adding anything more that is needed, such as the addition of auto-scouting, which reduces the micromanagement for scouting in easy scouting situations, or FRD, which is a game-changer on it's own.

I don't think you answered my main question here, Namely whether I should create a new mantis post with the base-plate suggestion, or modify the old one, and mark it as unresolved.

-- Oh dear, While I typed out this response to the first post, I had 3 more responses. Great. XD

[keith.lamothe]

Actually, you shouldn't need any new mechanics for that, now, due to the combination of:

1. Existing rally posts and ability to set routes from player docks.
2. Player warp gates and THEIR ability to set routes.
3. Neinzul starships, although those are expensive.

Anyway, just between the first two, that should actually handle it now.  When you made those comments before, I'd be surprised if player warp gates were in there, but I don't remember the specific comment.  I vaguely recall us batting it around in the past, though, but I think that was also before the CTRLS screen (so a good ways back).

I think it was before player warp gates, yes.  Not as much need there now.

Not sure if it would quite do what I was aiming for though: I would want the reinforcements to move (or warp, that would be fine and perhaps simpler) to the control-group-rally regardless of which planet it was on without my needing to redirect the dock or the warp gate or rejigger my rally-post network.

Or are these warp-gates mobile through wormholes?

[Ranakastrasz]

I can't speak for Chris, but personally I would suggest starting a forum thread to discuss and identify what the real "itch" is that you're trying to scratch with this and figure out how to achieve that with minimal changes to the actual game design, etc.  Also, to get a feel for the interest level people have.  This topic has come up a few times before.  If I have time I can also jump in and point out what sorts of things are likely or not-likely to happen, etc.  Once a solid idea or two emerge, file a brand new mantis record (with reference to the forum discussion so Chris doesn't execute his "oh look, someone else wants a new game shoved into AIW, close" code path

I don't know if it's a rational thing, but my first mental response to someone reopening an issue I closed for definite cause is to reach for the "Delete" button.  Can't reopen those

Basically rethink, refine, refine, refine, and maybe repost

Ok, that sounds like what I should do. I did get some support for the unstated underlining fix I had in the closed thread, even though I didn't directly state it.

For instance, it just occurs to me that a simpler way to handle this using existing mechanics might be:

1. Make it so that in a new tab of the CTRLS screen caps of each type of ship (down to the mark level), you can set your desired ship cap for each control group.

2. Make it so that when a space dock is in a control group, as now it will keep putting out ships in that control group.  But if there is a ship cap on that control group for the type it is trying to construct, it will only build up to that ship cap, and will otherwise wait idly.


This gives enormous flexibility in having up to 10 fleets that are self-replenishing from docks of your choosing, with very granular caps of your choosing, without really changing much in the way of core mechanics.  It does have an annoyingly large scrolling tab that will need to be coded in for that to work, but that's only a day or part of a day to accomplish.

If you want to throw that in Mantis, or if folks want to debate the merits, feel free.

Now that is clever, I think That that may be even better than what I had in mind, namely having idle space docks automatically building and adding *missing ships* to control groups (which are only missing if destroyed, the cap of the control group fleet is simply how many were there when the control group is created) if the whole control group is on the planet the space dock is on.
I am not going to discuss this here however, since the point of the thread was to ask for information on what to do.

Actually, you shouldn't need any new mechanics for that, now, due to the combination of:

1. Existing rally posts and ability to set routes from player docks.
2. Player warp gates and THEIR ability to set routes.
3. Neinzul starships, although those are expensive.

Anyway, just between the first two, that should actually handle it now.  When you made those comments before, I'd be surprised if player warp gates were in there, but I don't remember the specific comment.  I vaguely recall us batting it around in the past, though, but I think that was also before the CTRLS screen (so a good ways back).

The issue here is that none of these are able to currently add ships to control groups, which means you would have to individually add ships to the control groups, naturally adding extra micromanagement per fleet you manage, probably explaining why I just drag-grab my whole fleet and go attack a planet with it, and station it mostly on the planet with space-docks, so it will *automatically* get replenished.

Do Neinzul starships add their constructed ships to their control group?

-- I need to type and think faster... XD

[x4000]

The warp gates can be placed whereever, though they can't go through wormholes. However, like a rally post they can be given an order to anywhere.

But it's true, we might need some new unit that is called something like a "fleet rally warp gate."  And normally that warp gate does nothing, ever.  But when it is assigned to a control group, then any ships that are created from any structure also sharing that control group come out of that specific gate.  And I guess we could make that into something like a weak starship, so that it could go through wormholes and sit on the edge of battles, etc.

That would really kill any need for player beachheads, but we're basically there already.

[Ranakastrasz]

Actually, you shouldn't need any new mechanics for that, now, due to the combination of:

1. Existing rally posts and ability to set routes from player docks.
2. Player warp gates and THEIR ability to set routes.
3. Neinzul starships, although those are expensive.

Anyway, just between the first two, that should actually handle it now.  When you made those comments before, I'd be surprised if player warp gates were in there, but I don't remember the specific comment.  I vaguely recall us batting it around in the past, though, but I think that was also before the CTRLS screen (so a good ways back).

I think it was before player warp gates, yes.  Not as much need there now.

Not sure if it would quite do what I was aiming for though: I would want the reinforcements to move (or warp, that would be fine and perhaps simpler) to the control-group-rally regardless of which planet it was on without my needing to redirect the dock or the warp gate or rejigger my rally-post network.

Or are these warp-gates mobile through wormholes?

Pretty sure the warp gates are immobile, and that is the issue with rallypoints, They do not bind to a control group, and hence automatically add produced ships to any control group.

[x4000]

The issue here is that none of these are able to currently add ships to control groups, which means you would have to individually add ships to the control groups, naturally adding extra micromanagement per fleet you manage, probably explaining why I just drag-grab my whole fleet and go attack a planet with it, and station it mostly on the planet with space-docks, so it will *automatically* get replenished.

Do Neinzul starships add their constructed ships to their control group?

ALL docks and constructors of any sort automatically add ships to any control groups the parent dock is a part of.

[x4000]

Sigh.  Here's a summary:

1. At present, it is already trivial to automatically create and add any ships to any control group.  Just add the dock creating them to the control group(s) you want them to be in.

2. However, at present there is no way to tell a dock to STOP producing ships if the control group already has enough ships.

3. Also, there is no way to selectively give just one control group global warp-gate-style rally points.  Right now the warp gates are global per type of constructor.  The new proposed warp gates above would make it so that they are overriding all the per-constructor types of warp gates for anything matching their control group.

[Ranakastrasz]

The warp gates can be placed whereever, though they can't go through wormholes. However, like a rally post they can be given an order to anywhere.

But it's true, we might need some new unit that is called something like a "fleet rally warp gate."  And normally that warp gate does nothing, ever.  But when it is assigned to a control group, then any ships that are created from any structure also sharing that control group come out of that specific gate.  And I guess we could make that into something like a weak starship, so that it could go through wormholes and sit on the edge of battles, etc.

That would really kill any need for player beachheads, but we're basically there already.

I still use beachheads myself, mainly for seriously reinforced enemy planets.
I don't think a fleet rally warp gate is required/a good idea, while maybe partly automating warp gates to help control groups replenish would help, except that the 60/120 second stun can be an issue in fleets getting split up.

The issue here is that none of these are able to currently add ships to control groups, which means you would have to individually add ships to the control groups, naturally adding extra micromanagement per fleet you manage, probably explaining why I just drag-grab my whole fleet and go attack a planet with it, and station it mostly on the planet with space-docks, so it will *automatically* get replenished.

Do Neinzul starships add their constructed ships to their control group?

ALL docks and constructors of any sort automatically add ships to any control groups the parent dock is a part of.

That is useful to know. Half of the *issue* is there already. Interesting.
Does this include parasites and viral shredders?

[x4000]

Yes, it includes parasites and viral shredders.

In terms of having a fleet rally point, you'd want the new ships to be able to gather on or near the planet you are attacking or defending, but in a safe space.  Having new ships constantly popping directly into battle would definitely be bad for many reasons, balance-wise and otherwise.