Poll: What should be done with special forces?

[Ozymandiaz]

More of them, and maybe one mark up form AI would be OK I think.

[Faulty Logic]

My (current) ideal vision of special forces:

Small/medium forces (#of normal cap ships =AIP/4) of ships one mark higher than the current wave tech level patrol between sf guard posts.

These fleets can join waves, raid player space, help defend AI planets (especially HWs), and just generally try to make the player lose. They should also respond promptly to any HW attack (so going around, quietly killing the SF ships ("quietly subduing these subcommanders") would be a good, but not mandatory prelude to a HW assault).

The maximum number of fleets should be equal to the number of sf posts divided by some constant (say 5). They should respawn to max strength every 2 hours or so. Destroying a SF post will call nearby (within 2 or 3 hops) SF fleets, but not cost AIP.

Two SF fleets would be allowed to recruit ships from the guard state, and would not have a maximum size. These two fleets, and only these, would be able to execute stuff otherwise impossible for the AI. These fleets would be identifiable with a unique Special Forces commander guardian, which respawns (after a delay) at a HW if killed.

Mantised.
Feedback/refinement welcome.

[Martyn van Buren]

I do think they should have a limited range either from guard posts or what's now their ordinary route.  If they become a real threat, I like the idea of having a backdoor way of managing it (and I feel like deepstriking is fun and there should be more chances to get little strategic advantages out of it).  I also think it's cool to have "regions" in the game with different feels, so I'd like to see some areas be under serious threat from special forces but some fairly safe.

[TechSY730]

ARGH. Forum UI again, can't seem to set it so you can change your votes.

Set now

Um, I still can't change my vote nor remove my already placed votes. 

[keith.lamothe]

ARGH. Forum UI again, can't seem to set it so you can change your votes.

Set now

Um, I still can't change my vote nor remove my already placed votes. 

Odd.  Set again, and this time I opened the page again to make sure that box is ticked.

[TechSY730]

ARGH. Forum UI again, can't seem to set it so you can change your votes.

Set now

Um, I still can't change my vote nor remove my already placed votes. 

Odd.  Set again, and this time I opened the page again to make sure that box is ticked.

Ah, there it is. Thanks.

[Diazo]

Okay.

I voted for raiding/other.

What I mean by that is there are high value targets such as Adv. Facs., Energy Collectors, Fabricators, Etc. in the game that are important to your empire.

What I'd like to see special forces do is launch attacks against those.

At maybe twice the frequency of a CPA, a Special Forces wave is launched from a Special Forces Guard post. You would get a wave warning for this and the wave would be about the same size as a normal-time normal AI wave, but it would use the hybrid mechanics so all the ships landed at once and they would all target whatever they are raiding.

Example:

You get a "Special Forces are targetting the Advanced Factory on Planet X" warning up in the wave warning box with a countdown timer, call it 5 minutes?

When the timer expires the Special Forces wave is launched from a nearby special forces post in a bee-line at the Advanced Factory. I'd like it to be hybrid-like so the ships don't string out and come at you piece-meal so it is a pretty intense battle to save your Adv Fac.

Hmmm, maybe thinking of them as mini-exo waves with a specific target is a better way to look at what I'm suggesting?

That makes them different. A lot of the suggestions I'm seeing will simply be unnoticed. A few special forces ships patrolling around don't mean anything when you set up defences to take 1000 ship waves.

D.

[Kahuna]

I voted for raiding/other.

What I mean by that is there are high value targets such as Adv. Facs., Energy Collectors, Fabricators, Etc. in the game that are important to your empire.

I don't think Special Forces raiding is necessary. Exos already basically remove all capturables from the game. Not just on 10 diff.

[Diazo]

Exo? What's an exo?

(Yes, yes, I know).

My point was the fact that special forces are part of the base game, Exo's are not. As I play with most options disabled I have not seen an Exo in forever.

And even then, Exos are waves that slam into your defences to overwhelm you, this Special Forces wave attacking a specific target would be different.

You've got an Adv. Fac. in a backwater system somewhere so it should be safe, except this Special Forces wave targets it. As they make a bee-line for it they will quite possibly bypass a lot of the defences in your front line system as they pass through it. (They also might not, defensive setups would get tweaked if this change happened.)

I'm trying to make Special Forces different. Looking at the poll in this threat, I would say at least 3/4, maybe more of the suggestions will not actually change how I deal with special forces. With the presence of the Threat mechanic, Special Forces need something that is unique to them. Just buffing them as they are now will simply increase the effective Threat count in the galaxy.

D.

[Hearteater]

These are my thoughts on what I was envisioning when I made my votes:

Make them blob up more
Small packets of ships mean nothing.  I'd like to see Special Forces "pool" at Special Forces Guard Posts (SFGPs).  That is, while they spawn at SFGP individually, if enough Special Forces Ships (SFSs) are in the game, random SFGP would send out a "come here" call and cause SFSs to head there and form a group.  The size of the group should probably be based on AIP.  Something simple like group size = AIP would be fine, maybe a max groups of difficulty / 2.  Once the group reaches maximum size, it begins travelling around like normal SFSs and can do anything a SFS would do, just it does it as one big group.

Allow them to aid in defence
SFSs (and the above mentioned groups) should divert themselves to any nearby AI planet under attack.

Increase their spawn rate
I would make them spawn separately from normal reinforcements, possibly with a target max number of SFSs based on difficulty and AIP.  This would allow a much higher spawn rate since the maximum population is capped, unlike normal reinforcements.  A cap of AIP * Difficulty might work, and maybe a spawn rate that produced that number of units over 1-2 hours.  I could even see the spawn rate scaling so that when SFS population was low, the rate was higher.  Maybe a per-minute spawn rate of: AIP * Difficulty / 100 * (2 - SFS_Count / SFS_Max).  Reinforcement pulses wouldn't need to be per minute.

Have them wait to join other attacks
Like with defense, SFSs adjacent to the player system the wave is going to attack should move to join the wave when it comes through.  Likewise, if border aggression occurs, it should call all SFS from systems adjacent to the player system should join the attack.  I don't know that'd I'd change border aggression threat math to account for SFSs.  I think I'd rather the SFSs be an unwelcome surprise added to the pile.

Have them attack/defend if AIHW attack
For this one, any SFSs adjacent to the AIHW should defend it.  But I'd also like an AIHW attack make other SFSs not near the AIHW go after remote player worlds.  Specifically those within 4 hops of the AIHW.  Basically, the AI should be trying to turn your AIHW attack into a deep strike if it can.

Allow them to launch Special Forces waves
When SFSs are at cap, I'd like to see them sometimes group up 10-20% of their number, go to the biggest pile of threat, recruit that threat, and then launch a wave against the weakest human system.  I don't mind a warning that "Special Forces Ships appear to be up to something" and even a timed countdown.  The wave could physically move against the system in question, or probably more amusing (and also giving a better reason for a wave countdown) just have it pick up the SFSs and the threat selected and drop them in just like a normal wave.

Increase their initial numbers
I remember setting off a Special Forces Alarm Guard Post almost immediately in a 7.6 game and getting 390 threat.  A decent chunk of that was from the raid itself.  That isn't actually all that far off from what I'd like to see honestly.  I think seeding roughly 25 * Difficulty for each AI initially would be a good point (so 500 on a 10/10, 350 on a 7/7).

Form starship/escort fleets
In alerted systems, sometimes SFSs passing through should attach themselves to a starship or other large mobile AI unit and follow it around (kind of like a mini-Exo wave).  It should always be the most powerful unit in the system.  If any units in the system already have escorts, new escorts should only be randomly assigned to them.  When an AI ship gets escorts, it becomes active threat.

[Diazo]

Okay, I just read back over my posts and I realized I never even stated my actual position on Special Forces as they currently exist.

Right now as Special Forces exist, I consider them Threat.

Special Forces ships spawn at Special Forces Guard posts and then travel between those Guard Posts between systems. However they do this individually or in such small packets that they die instantly to the defences I have setup to handle the ships that I turn loose on threat.

For the record, anything under 200 threat is effectively no threat present for my games. It's not until threat gets up to 400 that I start worrying about it, another 20 or 30 special forces ships on top of that is nothing.

Therefore I don't even think about them, I set up my defences to handle threat and the special forces just kind of die.

So, with that in mind here is what I think about the poll options:

Leave them as is
Ya, no. They need to change. Somehow.

Remove them entirely
Eh, they force me to throw up a few defences in every system. I think I'd leave them in as-is before asking for them to be removed.

Remove their AIP
This is the only reason I even notice Special Forces at the moment. At 1 AIP I think it's okay, makes neutering a system more of a choice.

Make them higher-mark
Those 20 ships flying around are now a higher mark. I still don't notice them among the 200 threat I've turned loose in my attacks on AI systems.

Make them blob up more
Okay, they come less often but in a bigger pack. I now have 200 threat and 100 special forces, it's still effectively 300 threat for me to deal with.

Let them recruit (free) normal ships
I assume you mean turn ships loose on threat into special forces ships? Okay, what's the difference? I treat them the same anyway.

Allow them to aid defence
This might make them more interesting, but as they are the system I'm attacking has 300 ships, I'm not even going to notice the few special forces that come in from adjacent systems.

Increase their spawn rate
Yay, more threat.

Have them wait to join other attacks
Yay, more threat.

Have them attack/defend if AIHW attack
I could see this working. I'm not sure how much it would mean as the HW's have pretty heavy defences already, would another couple hundered (low-mark) ships from elsewhere in the galaxy even be noticed? Also, isn't this essentially giving the HWs an automatic Special Forces Alarm Post?

Give them unique (for the AI) abilities
This is what they need, right now special forces are threat, there is no difference between the two. So, make Special Forces different somehow.

Allow them to launch Special Forces waves
Kind of what I suggested, but it has to be different from the normal waves and the CPAs somehow.

Let Starships/guardians join them
Yay, more threat.

Increase their initial numbers
Yay, more AI ships entering my system in the first 5 minutes. (Yay, early game threat.)

Advanced pathfinding (via neutral worlds)
Kind of included in my suggestion? On it's own though this has no point.

Raiding behavior
Combine this with giving them the ability to make Special Forces Waves attacking a high-value target is my suggestion.

Form starship/escort fleets
Yay, more threat.


I realize I'm coming off as quite dismissive here, but that's how broken Special Forces is.

Or maybe the fact that I see Special Forces and Threat as being essentially identical.

The biggest reason for this is my current game. It is Diff 10/10 with one of the AIs being the Special Forces Captain.

I don't even notice the Special Forces Ships.

That's how broken Special Forces is so they really need some major changes to their mechanics. Leaving their mechanics as is and just buffing them is not going to solve anything.

D.

[Draco18s]

Yay, more threat.

My thoughts, exactly.

[TechSY730]

That's sort of why I want to see them smarter, to avoid the "it's just more threat" type of thing. (This would imply that special forces ships should be made such that they won't decay into "normal threat" merely because they stumble across hostile presence)
Now to make them effective with that smarter behavior, buffs may be needed (higher marks, higher spawn rate, whatever). But I do like how the special forces ships are basically just normal ships that the AI is giving special tasks to, even though right now the AI is sort of failing miserably on that "special tasks" part.

[Diazo]

The thing is, the players build defences to handle waves. A 20 or 30 ship packet sent off with 'special orders' is not going to be noticed.

That's why I like the special forces wave. Yes, it would get a Wave Warning like a normal wave or CPA, but it would be big enough to be worrysome.

D.

[TechSY730]

The thing is, the players build defences to handle waves. A 20 or 30 ship packet sent off with 'special orders' is not going to be noticed.

That's why I like the special forces wave. Yes, it would get a Wave Warning like a normal wave or CPA, but it would be big enough to be worrysome.

D.

Well, then why are they trying to attack with only 20 to 30 ships when their total firepower is no where near enough to take the planet on?
That would not be smart behavior.

When I am talking about "clumping up" more, I am not talking about 20 to 30 ship groups, I'm talking about large enough groups to actually make a difference.

This may require "calling" most of the special forces that are out in the galaxy if all in-points are well defended, or possibly, if the in-points are so well defended that even all the threat + special forces in the galaxy would not be enough to have a reasonable chance to even reasonably dent the weakest in-point, even if they wait for a double wave to that planet (assuming that planet is a valid wave in-point), then maybe special forces should relegate themselves to defensive duties where they are needed until somehow an in-point becomes weak enough to "charge" (or a new "in-point" is created that they can shut down before it gets a chance to establish)
But then again, if you are strong enough such that you can take on every ship the AI has available (freed or not) rushing you at once (note, at once, not streaming in) + a double wave (which from what I am seeing, is quite sadly moderately possible even without cheese with how the game is right now ), then you really deserve to win anyways.

Now can there be an alert for when they have a reasonably big clump that the AI has decided to try to find a place to attack with it? Sure, similar alerts exist for such behaviors.

How would moving (or group moving) to the planet they think they can reasonably dent be any different than simply "warping" them in, aside from eliminating time to get there?