Revisit the cruisers-fighters-bombers balance triangle

[Narmio]

Hi,

I bought AI War last week, having great fun so far.  I just was wondering about the classic RTS rock-paper-scissors relationship at the core of the ship balance:  Fighters > Cruisers > Bombers > Fighters.  This seems really quite strange to me, both in terms of how it reflects "reality" (not that that's of overwhelming concern in a sci-fi game, but it does help intuitive understanding) and how it works within the game balance. 

I was wondering why the relationship isn't: fighters beat bombers (because bombs are too big and slow to hit them), bombers beat cruisers (because bombers are small but pack a ton of firepower - and cruisers are easy to hit), and cruisers beat fighters (because fighters don't pack the firepower necessary to take down a big cruiser, plus the guided missiles don't have the same disadvantage as the big slow energy bombs).

That sort of seems to "fit" better to me, and sort of parallels other spaceship battles games/movies/fiction better.  It's the old WW2 dogfighting metaphor which is the classic action sci-fi inspiration - assuming you map cruisers to naval vessels.

I can kind of understand why fighters should beat cruisers - because they can get up close and hit vulnerable bits, but bombers make more sense.  I can also kind of understand if the relationships are tied to the ranges and speeds of the ships - I haven't thought too much about how my proposition would change balance there (For example, cruisers beat fighters but could never catch them - so if fighters are rampaging around your system, you can't easily get to them with what they're weak to).  But the one thing that really irks me about the current arrangement is why bombers are effective against fighters, small, fast things, *and* static structures, big slow things.  Maybe I'm missing something, but that doesn't seem logical somehow.

So this post is sort of half a request for justification from the admirably-active-in-this-community game dev (Hi! Your game is cool!) and half a suggestion that the balance triangle be revisited.  So I hope it's in the right forum.

Thanks!

[x4000]

Welcome to the forums!  And thanks for your support, glad you're enjoying the game.

The fighter/bomber cruiser balance is the way it is for a number of important reasons.  Basically, the cruisers are big and slow artillery, which as you know tend to generally be weak to small, faster "common" units (footsoldiers, fighters, whatever).  Fighters, by the same token, are built to be up close and personal to those sorts of giant ships, and thus don't take a lot of damage from them.

The bombers are heavily shielded, which is the main disconnect from many other RTS games -- that is vital for the functions of the bomber, such as for extended sieges of force fields and other similar heavy structures.  The way that shields in this game works, range of the attacking ship plays a big part.  So cruisers, because of their high range, become the natural enemy of shielded bombers.

Bombers, by the same token, have an attack that does a huge amount of damage, and fighters have relatively lower hull strength.  So it's entirely logical also that they would be weak to bombers, and they are all but useless against bombers in return because the low range of fighters makes them unable to effectively penetrate the shields of said bombers.

All of this came about from a logical analysis of the gameplay mechanics in this specific game, and the niches that all of the ships needed to fill.  It would be extremely game-breaking to change it, though I understand that it is inconsistent with other RTS titles.  That inconsistency was not casually done, and given the shield mechanics I can't think of a more sensible way to handle it.

But thanks for checking!  It's good to do a sanity check every so often.  I'll put this up on the wiki, because this has come up before and I don't remember where the other answer was posted (but it was essentially the same as this).

[liq3]

Gasp, his Xness beat me! Oh well, I'll post it anyway.


Well it's basically like this...

The bombers are big armoured hulks, so they get past base defenses and such. Fighters don't have the firepower needed to punch through their armour. Cruisers missiles on the other hand do. Cruisers themselves are lightly armoured, which is why fighters can kill them easily.

Now, bombers used to do terrible against fighters (they'd win, but it'd take years). This was really fixed in 1.201 (and late into it too). They gained something like a 10x damage boost against fighters. So yeh. XD

[Narmio]

OK, that does make sense, I agree.  And I wasn't aware of the link between range and shield effectiveness, either.  Or that there isn't a relationship between speed/size and hit chance - that's the assumption that led me astray.

I'm wondering, then, if the names and/or descriptions of the Bomber and the Cruiser could be tweaked to better reflect that it is the bomber that is the heavily armoured unit and the cruiser that is the fragile artillery platform.  Since, as you say, that's possibly inconsistent with how people may view the ship types, particularly while first getting into the game and trying to grasp the unit relationships.  I don't know what the best way to indicate that would be.  "Missile cruiser" does sort of give the right impression, maybe the bombers could be renamed "heavy fighter" or "heavy bomber" or something to indicate that they're the tanky one out of the basic units, while if necessary fighters could be renamed "Interceptor" to differentiate them.  I don't know that I like those names specifically, and I wouldn't dream of telling you what you should call your units, but in general I think that just "bomber" does not convey what the ships really are. 

Veterans of the game may discount this as an unimportant and trivial thing that just has to be learnt, but consistency and intuitive naming and description play a huge part in game learning curves.  And reducing cognitive load on trivial things free newer players up to focus on learning what they really need to learn - how to stop a 500 ship raid half an hour into the game! 

[x4000]

I think there is something to be said for continuity, and not renaming ships too frequently.  There are quadruple digits of AI War players already, and renaming something as basic as fighter to "interceptor" is something I'd be hesitant about doing.  That said, I do like the term "Heavy Bomber" as it is more descriptive without renaming the base part of the unit name itself (people can keep calling them bombers if they prefer).  And I think that is more akin to the heavy bombers in other games, so that's a fit.  Good call!

[eRe4s3r]

If we think of this what i write as a hypothetical thing  
 
I would rank them the "navy" way. ie Scout/Corvettes/Frigates/Destroyers/Cruisers
ie the beginning is a Missile Corvette (MK1 Cruiser) then Missile Frigate (MK2 Cruiser) then Missile Destroyer (MK3 Cruiser) and then Missile Cruiser (MKIV Cruiser) (This would also work well in german)

Fighters would become Intercept Corvettes and Bombers Attack Corvettes, MRLS could even stay the same MRLS Corvette to Cruiser (Would also work even better in german)

But i haven't yet thought this through entirely.. | I do agree though that the one thing i would immediately change in a mod is Starships (because they are Capital Ships, a starship is everything small and large that can fly in space) Basically Starship translates to Raumschiff in german. That is going to cause a LOT of confusion in the translation

Some stuff in-the game is just named oddly i guess
Nothing a Mod couldn't change

Yeah: The Space Fleet Naming Doctrine Guru shines through - i'd probablly call Parasites - EW (electronic Warfare) Corvettes too, this is one of these things a mod can change and achieve a great "felt" change that is not really a change at all, just cosmetics. But one that doesn't even need changing stats

[Tankor Smash]

If we think of this what i write as a hypothetical thing  
 
I would rank them the "navy" way. ie Scout/Corvettes/Frigates/Destroyers/Cruisers
ie the beginning is a Missile Corvette (MK1 Cruiser) then Missile Frigate (MK2 Cruiser) then Missile Destroyer (MK3 Cruiser) and then Missile Cruiser (MKIV Cruiser) (This would also work well in german)

Fighters would become Intercept Corvettes and Bombers Attack Corvettes, MRLS could even stay the same MRLS Corvette to Cruiser (Would also work even better in german)

Oh man, do I ever like the idea of renaming the units like that - to keep the Bomber part but adding a prefix like mentioned above. Adding custom prefixes to all of the existing names would just be faaahbulous. The method of diffrenciating levels of the ships would still be the I, II, III, etc under their names. But I can see why you'd be hesitant in renaming all of the ships for the sake of continuity. It would add even more to the game's polish I think, I would think that instead of the basic MkI MkII it would add a certain spice to the game, and make it feel like the second level ships (and beyond) are more different than just being stronger with a few token improvements(even though that's what they are =P).

Also, 4 digits worth of players eh?

[eRe4s3r]

Well i will try a mod like this but not before 2.0 is out, and i can safely assert unit roles ;p (atm i am not sure Fighters are good for anything)

[x4000]

Bear in mind that any mods you make will get wiped out with every new version of the game, because it's one big file that has all the unit names and such.  I'm not so much a navy guy, I named these more after their land/air counterparts with a hint of navy in there.

And it depends on what you read as to what starships, etc, are called.  In 70s/80s novels, often it is starships.  In more recent space games like Homeworld, they call them capital ships often.  Seeing as I've never liked any of the modern space-based RTS games too much (just none of them really caught my attention, for whatever reason), I have a strong aversion to the capital ship / corvette way of naming things.  I took most of my inspirations for naming from other media, such as books, movies, and television, and the game is consistent with those.

[eRe4s3r]

You work too much!  

Well i won't do any mods until 2.0 is out

But as for large file, thats not really a problem, i would probably write a script that replaces text parts, i won't do it by hand ;p That way it will be valid even if you add new stuff. But yeah, atm i have like 0 urge to mod

[x4000]

But as for large file, thats not really a problem, i would probably write a script that replaces text parts, i won't do it by hand ;p That way it will be valid even if you add new stuff.

That would work!