Radar damping on guard posts

[x4000]

Whew, this has turned into one of those topics. 

Suffice it to say, I know things are not working precisely the way that I want them to at the moment.  A lot of that is heavily playstyle-dependent, though, such that it's hard for me to gauge exactly which rule is taking precedence when, and why the AI is doing X in Y situation.  I think mostly this thread has hashed this one out, but as I recall actually we looked at this a lot pre-5.0 and decided not to muck with it too much.

For now, that's basically still my stance -- I don't want to try getting into this one with a ten foot pole until we have a lot of time to sit down with it and really hash it out.  During the next expansion development period, I'd really like to introduce some new mechanics to the base game that lead to smaller, more tactical sub-engagements when taking out a specific planet.  I'm not sure precisely what will be involved with that.  One big problem at the moment is actually the huge range of some ships, most specifically the guardians.

I guess one simple rules change could be to make it so that any ship guarding another ship (that isn't an escort-type ship as with hybrids) gets its attack range cut in half.  It might also be that engaging any of the ships guarding the command station is causing the whole planet to bum rush you, and that might need to be changed if that's the case.  Those two things might be fairly harmless and straightforward to do, although they'll inevitably mess with difficulty (making the game easier, presumably).

The other issue, about the AI completely reacting to you when you bring in a fleet that is larger than it, is tougher -- that was something that we specifically needed in order to make the game not a cakewalk for really advanced players who were just kiting around killing guard post after guard post while the rest of the planet sat there stupidly, which seemed bad.  So that's not really a nice thing, either.

Possibly my goal of having that sub-battlefield feel to the guard posts on planets, like we had in the 1.0-3.0 era, just isn't possible anymore.  Back then it always had the drawback of planets being artificially easier because most of the guard posts just sat there instead of attacking you.

Oh, there's also the rule about ships that are attacked being allowed to leave their guard duty when they are attacked.  That's been a good fix to a great many issues, but it also causes... well, this.

All that to say, these are the things that I don't have good answers for yet, and why I've been wanting to wait until the next big push of development to really dive into them more deeply.  We need time to try things, see what players think, change those things, repeat, etc.

[Lancefighter]

I didn't really mean to make on of those topics when I posted this >_>

[x4000]

I know, and it's no worries.  It's something that needs to be figured out at some point, but I don't think it's a simple thing because it's so interconnected with various other elements.

[realcoolguy]

So how much K for a radar dampening suppressor?  The kind where I can let loose with the long range guns if I manage to build one at the enemy planet?  Having supply at a planet to build it may or may not be a problem so that's a partial nerf.  I'm sure you could come up with a dozen more, but you need not change the behavior of everything to fit one play style, when another unlockable may be in order.

[x4000]

Countering the counter can always be... tricky.

[Lancefighter]

what about like.. the guard post radar damping if its not aggressed or something. I dunno, like in its 'dormant' state, its hard to shoot at?

at that point, if all its guards walk away, (because its aggressed), itll no longer be tedius to clean up, but you cant just snipe them off the map so easily.

Issues would be that you can just tag a guardian and snipe them anyway with siege starships and some micro :\

[Hearteater]

The only way counter radar dampening could work I think would be to have it cancel radar dampening on all ships near it.  That way you at least need to get this ship into close range and keep it alive long enough for other things to do the job.  Actually, it could be a fairly interesting ability on a melee fleet ship.

[TechSY730]

So if I can go back to the earlier "offtopic topic", the guerrilla warfare vs. "ship blob warfare" effectiveness balance in the game as it is now, it seems to me the guerrilla style warfare works great currently, the problem is that the game does not "advertise" its effectiveness well. I use both styles in games, switching between the two depending on context, and they both work well. But yea, the times where guerrilla warfare works great is not being intuitively presented by game. So its more of a "player behavior encouragement" and presentation issue, and less of a balance issue.

As X4000 mentioned, this is a big, overall game structure issue, and is something that is going to have to wait until AI War becomes the focus of development again.

I would like to repeat though, that even though we love to "whine" about stuff like this, IMHO, the game is in VERY good shape right now. These issues, while they may touch the entire game, are actually pretty minor compared to everything else in this game that is effecting balance. So you guys are on the right track.

[realcoolguy]

I guess forget the whole radar dampening changes when you look at AI war again.  It should all come down to cost/benefit analysis.  I mean you guys nerfed my favorite ability of mobile repair units to sweep in and save my failing armies from certain doom, which I guess is fair because that was really overpowered.  However there is a long list of units that cost far more than they are worth.  Because of the siege starship's limited choices of units to attack, either A: Break the radar dampening for siege starships and only that unit, making them far more interesting, or B:  Greatly reduce the cost and time needed to build one, or C:  create a complimentary unit that can disable radar dampening on enemy units which could be game breaking if done wrong, or D:  Give the siege starship the ability to target a wider range of units, better engines, better armor, or some sort of improvements that would otherwise balance the cost/benefit ratio. 

Ion cannons are also laughably useless now, and need the same sort of analysis.  I wouldn't mind seeing a re-searchable tree to get even more improved items out of the trader too, something that could legitimately fit a player turtle style would be interesting, especially for difficult to defend planets.  Of course that creates another headache AI type, the Shopper, who buys all the goodies and unlockable goodies that still need to be invented.  As always the sword could be double edged.  My 12 barreled MarkIV Ion Cannon with Turbo Cooling would be something to actually get excited about getting up, especially on that one planet that just can't seem to quite hold back the enemy and is in a constant state of being rebuilt.  Of course an equal level of dread would be involved when visiting an enemy planet that has one.

[Ranakastrasz]

I cannot remember a time when ion cannons were even something to worry about, <sarcasm> maybe they used to be seeded 6 to a planet? </sarcasm>
I would expect that ion cannons are unable to hit targets with radar dampening at all, probably same with fortesses, which brings me to my next point.
Radar dampening for certain units has made the so-called *long range* attacks misnomers. The old mechanic of shields (replaced with armor a while back, I think in version 4.000, due to it being too *random* I believe) did add an interesting effect, namely making attacks less effective at high range and more so at short range, since *effective range* (where hit chance is 100%) is (range - shields) iirc. This meant that your attacks were innately more powerful at short range, and weaker at long range, but the armor mechanic did not have this effect. radar dampening may have been introduced to compensate, but the all or nothing deal seems to be an issue.
I do NOT however disagree with the reason for replacing shields with armor, the random hit chance detracted from the game imo. However, I think that radar dampening is not a good mechanic as it currently stands, and possibly making it work similarly to shields, namely by reducing damage to the target in the same manner as shields absorbed attacks. I seem to remember (but cannot locate any references on the wiki anymore) that chance to hit scaled to zero linearly from effective range to stated range. (snipers f.e. had infinite range, thus ignored shields innately, which fighters could have issues hitting their targets. I think a floor was introduced at some point due to sometime shields being greater than range, thus making (non-sniper) turrets do absolutely nothing when a spacetank (30k shields) showed up.

I think that is the real issue behind radar dampening. "That just happens to be the way I feel about it. What do you think?"

[TechSY730]

[Well thought out but long post]

So you are suggesting that if attempted range of firing > radar dampening, instead of making it not work at all, scale the damage down linearly in proportion to current range - radar dampening range?
If you adjust the slope of that relation right, you will still give a good incentive to bring your long range units close, but still make it optional if you want.

I like this idea. However, finding a good slope (and maybe a minimum reduction too) for when you are beyond the radar dampening range will be tricky, but I think worth it.

It should be reiterated that radar dampening was designed to counter long ranged units, so we shouldn't complain too much when we find long ranged units having trouble dealing with them.

EDIT: Copying here something I said on an issue on the bug tracker (comment 12822)

Yea, it seems that most of the "all or nothing" mechanics could be replaced by a value, with a "value of resistance" to that mechanic to counter it. Yes, this is MUCH more difficult to balance, but makes many mechanics FAR less annoying to deal with, and leads to far less "silly" situations.

[Ranakastrasz]

[Well thought out but long post]

So you are suggesting that if attempted range of firing > radar dampening, instead of making it not work at all, scale the damage down linearly in proportion to current range - radar dampening range?
If you adjust the slope of that relation right, you will still give a good incentive to bring your long range units close, but still make it optional if you want.

Basically yes, that is the idea, since although it does not circumvent radar dampening. (aside from snipers with 999 billion range I think) it does still give more damage (or less less damage, if you know what I mean) And yes, If a unit has radar dapening, it is to make it hard to kill from long range, but this way they are vulnerable, more so if you close the distance (rather than instant works perfectly in dampen range)

I like this idea. However, finding a good slope (and maybe a minimum reduction too) for when you are beyond the radar dampening range will be tricky, but I think worth it.

Minimum reduction? does that mean past the dampening range it instantly starts at say 80% damage, then drops, or at 20% damage it locks at 20% damage/drops to zero instantly. (since fireing much past that range would be a *waste of ammo* or rather cooldown) Balancing is never easy, and new concepts (or redone old concepts) tend to be more so.

It should be reiterated that radar dampening was designed to counter long ranged units, so we shouldn't complain too much when we find long ranged units having trouble dealing with them.

Exactly the point, Making long range allowed to attack them, but not 100% ineffective to them. You *could* have your siegeantimatter starship shoot at a guard-post, but good luck dealing lots of damage. Ion cannons and (actually, I just realized that I don't know how to handle instakills, possibly a miss chance, or a percent of max hp rather than max hp?) snipers are long range and would have no trouble hitting radar dampened targets for effectively full damage (possibly make it snap to 5% intervals, so as to make infinite range attacks still deal 100 or 95% to them)

EDIT: Copying here something I said on an issue on the bug tracker (comment 12822)

Yea, it seems that most of the "all or nothing" mechanics could be replaced by a value, with a "value of resistance" to that mechanic to counter it. Yes, this is MUCH more difficult to balance, but makes many mechanics FAR less annoying to deal with, and leads to far less "silly" situations.
[/quote]
Yep, I initially made that for paralysis effects only, (and certain targets, like fortresses and ion cannons would still be totally immune to paralysis) but if a full cap of paralizers attacked a core starship and reduced it's active time by 50% (pulling that value out of thin air) it would be extremely useful, even if it didn't totally disable it. (especially if passive abilities like munition boosting and tractor beams turn off, Take that ether jet thief!) And it could include a bunch of other effects I realized recently, (namely by seeing this thread) and noting that it was the all or nothing deal that was the underlying issue, so Paralasis and radar dampening, this could apply to other mechanics too, but I cant think of any examples at this time.

[TechSY730]

Ranakastrasz, you seem to have gotten most of what I posted.
Just to answer one question.

I like this idea. However, finding a good slope (and maybe a minimum reduction too) for when you are beyond the radar dampening range will be tricky, but I think worth it.

Minimum reduction? does that mean past the dampening range it instantly starts at say 80% damage, then drops, or at 20% damage it locks at 20% damage/drops to zero instantly. (since fireing much past that range would be a *waste of ammo* or rather cooldown) Balancing is never easy, and new concepts (or redone old concepts) tend to be more so.

Basically, what I mean by minimum reduction is that if a ship is even one pixel beyond the radar dampening range, it would only be able to inflict at most some yet to be determined percentage of its damage. From that minimum reduction onwards, the damage would decrease linearly as normal. (So basically, a basic y=m*x + a type formula) Eventually, when a ship gets too far, the damage multiplier would hit 0% of course, where you would be too far to do any damage. Where this point would be relative to the radar dampening range is also to be determined (2x the radar dampening range, maybe?)

[Lancefighter]

Do we really need more units like the stealth battleships?

Does nobody remember the old space tanks or special forces rally points? >_>
I dont think we need another damage mitigation stat, I believe we need ai design that encourages the current ones to matter.

[TechSY730]

Do we really need more units like the stealth battleships?

Does nobody remember the old space tanks or special forces rally points? >_>
I dont think we need another damage mitigation stat, I believe we need ai design that encourages the current ones to matter.

We are not really proposing a new damage mitigation stat, but rather making a current one (radar dampening) less "all or nothing".