Refleeting is still way too long

[Draco18s]

The player retains overall pace control because you don't have to throw (or re-throw) the ball immediately if you don't want to.

Whether it's a good idea, naturally, is harder to say.

Sort of where my little flash RTS was going.  I liked the idea, never built enough code to really find out if it was viable.  I made several blunders laying things out in a useful manner (class hierarchy, etc.) and never did built an AI Core to handle the non-player faction.

Defenses were cheap and easy, decent range and hit points, but were stationary.*  So it was pretty easy to "turret ball" and collect the scrap from the ships the AI (would) throw at you and then retaliate with it.

Gods above I want to revisit that project and rebuild it.  But have so many other things I want to do too.... ;..;

*If I recall correctly, a "turret" had double the range and double the HP of its fleet-ship counterpart and something like 25% of the cost.  The "crystal" resource which acted as unit cap was 1-per-fleet-ship or 1-per-8-turrets.  You also had to build turrets within a given range of the "support tower" (1 crystal to build, supports 8 turrets), and those had to be built either within range of another one or within range of the mothership.  So you couldn't turret-ball no-man's land without great expense.  And if the chain was ever broken, they'd take damage over time.

[Wingflier]

I really like your line of thinking Keith, and this may turn out to be the best anti-blob measure yet.

Please explain that.

If players are punished less for losing their entire army (blob), I fail to see how this in any way encourages them to do it less.

[Draco18s]

I really like your line of thinking Keith, and this may turn out to be the best anti-blob measure yet.

Please explain that.

If players are punished less for losing their entire army (blob), I fail to see how this in any way encourages them to do it less.

You're reading it wrong.

Player throws blob at AI.
Player loses blob.
AI then takes the remains of that blob and throws it back.

[Volatar]

I really like your line of thinking Keith, and this may turn out to be the best anti-blob measure yet.

Please explain that.

If players are punished less for losing their entire army (blob), I fail to see how this in any way encourages them to do it less.

You're reading it wrong.

Player throws blob at AI.
Player loses blob.
AI then takes the remains of that blob and throws it back.

Exactly. Unintelligent blobbing is just throwing your fleet at a target. If doing that makes the enemy stronger, while the alternative is smaller, specialized strike forces, then...

[TechSY730]

Ok, then how can the AI get the resources too attack without it feeling like it is being "unfair"?

Does it just speed up the time to declare the next wave? Is it some sort of mechanic which would be symmetrical (aka, the player can use that mechanic or similar version of it to profit from a massively failed AI attack)? Will the process be "visible" to the player?

What will the "counter attack" be composed of? Generated ships? Reclaimed ships of yours?


Also, btw, I still think that the higher level AIs are too "skiddish" in terms of when to attack, aka, they overestimate the players' strength, so the don't go for potentially finishing attacks with threat fleet when they probably could of.

[Toranth]

I really like your line of thinking Keith, and this may turn out to be the best anti-blob measure yet.

Please explain that.
If players are punished less for losing their entire army (blob), I fail to see how this in any way encourages them to do it less.

You're reading it wrong.

Player throws blob at AI.
Player loses blob.
AI then takes the remains of that blob and throws it back.

Unfortunately, I'm imagining a late game fleetwipe (e.g. a failed AI HW attack) - 10 ship types, unlocked to Mk IV, a few starships, some Core shiptypes... We're looking at 30-40 ship caps of human units.  If they fleetwipe, can the human survive its own counterattack?  Even if it can, even if it got a 100% refund on the fleet ships, how much will it need to spend to rebuild defenses and any lost systems?  Or lost unqiues (Fabs, etc)?

Unless the human's defenses whereever this rebound goes are sufficient to fight it off with minimal losses, it's a punishment.  But if it's easy to fight off with minimal losses, then it's just a flat out reward.  Balance would be very tricky...

While I can see this becoming an interesting mechanic, it sounds more like the sort of thing that belongs as an optional AI plot, not a core mechanic.  If the decision is to do nothing to address core game refleeting, but to add an optional Shark-C (or whatever) that can be used, that's one thing.  But to me, that says that the general opinion is that refleeting doesn't need to be addressed.

[Diazo]

The thing is the AI throwing resources back would be for a game where you have the heavy defenses to stand off AI waves and so you are in a game you can afford to fleet wipe because your mobile fleet is not your entire effective fleet.

In a game where you don't have those heavy defenses and your mobile fleet is your entire effective fleet, a fleet wipe is (almost) always a loss anyway and this mechanic would just speed up the player losing.


In addition to everything else when considering balance we are now starting to talk about two types of games.

1) The mobile fleet is everything. Going light on defensive structures, this type of game dumps everything into the mobile fleet so the player knows he needs to reserve part of his fleet for defensive purposes. Because of this the player is cautious and does not commit to attacks that might wipe his entire fleet, knowing that if he does lose everything his static defenses can not hold and he will lose the game while waiting for the refleet to happen. Therefore this kind of game will (almost) never see a refleet situation.

2) Defenses are everything. Going heavy on the defensive structures, this type of game only keeps a large enough fleet around to perform attacks. Getting into the late game the player has to commit his entire fleet in order to make any progress against the AI as his mobile fleet is significantly smaller as he has concentrated on unlocking defenses as opposed to mobile ships. However, this player does not really worry about the AI's waves as his defenses are strong enough to hold them off with little difficulty. However, this player will be refleeting often as having to commit his entire fleet means he will be losing his entire fleet at points during the game.

In reality, games land somewhere on the spectrum between those two points. However, the closer you get to type 2 (defenses are everything), the more the NetFlix refleet becomes an issue as you can afford to lose your mobile fleet because you know your defenses can handle the AI's attacks while you refleet, which leads to more daring attacks as you have both a smaller fleet to make attacks with and the knowledge your defenses can hold without your mobile units present.


Okay, wall of text and I kind of lost my point.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there is a wide range of playstyles out there. Getting into situations where you have to refleet is a bad thing and is something that should be punished.

However, the consensus seems to be at the moment that the penalty for having to refleet is too steep and needs toning down somehow without removing the fact that having to refleet is a penalty to the player.

D.

[Cyborg]

I like the suggestion of a larger bank, but maybe we need to look at the tactics for taking down heavily defended core worlds. Look at what's causing fleet wipes, and if that's just not supported.

[TechSY730]

I like the suggestion of a larger bank, but maybe we need to look at the tactics for taking down heavily defended core worlds. Look at what's causing fleet wipes, and if that's just not supported.

That's actually a good point. Are fleet wipes a common thing (well, common enough to get a 4 page thread about it) merely because the punishment for it is rarely more than just time loss, or is it because the game (whether by the engine, the unit/structure design, whatever) doesn't really give many other options that given similar sorts of long term gains?

It it is the first, then this isn't such a huge deal. The AI's responsiveness could be turned up, and maybe economy could use a bit of tweaking, but its not like a huge flaw, just a playstyle that lots of players gravitate towards.

If it is the second, then that is a sign of a much deeper problem with unit/structure/defense design or possibly even engine design, and will require significantly more thought.


The "dynamic resource cap" idea is pretty cool in either case. Maybe do something like bump the base resource cap back down to 300k (each), but the HW command center adds 200k (each) to the cap, meaning for the typical start (1 HW start), a player starts with a 500k cap. Then, other command stations would also add to the cap, but to a lesser degree (like maybe the Econ Mk. III would add 150k (each), but Military Mk. I and Warp Jammer would be at the bottom only give a piddlin 20k (each)). Then the  spire hub could give like, idk, 200k (each) to the cap, with each habitation center also giving an additional 150k (each)?

This would also have the nice side effect of a long requested feature, increased resource cap for multi-HW starts, as you would have multiple HW command centers, each giving 200k (each). Also, the command center cores would should probably still increase the cap, but by a much reduced factor, like only 100k (each).

Of course, numbers will probably need to be tuned.

[Kahuna]

player starts with a 500k cap.

then nerf the ai too

[Kahuna]

throwing blobs here and there doesn't even work anymore. Has not worked since the guard post buffs. If it does. Turn up the difficulty.

[TechSY730]

player starts with a 500k cap.

then nerf the ai too

Yea, the AIs base "strength" would need to be turned down a bit to compensate, but not by a huge amount.
After all, in the early-mid game, how much does a 999,999 cap really come into play? (excluding multi HW starts, positive player handicaps, and cheats)

[Nodor]

Zenith Distribution nodes were/are the solution to a terrible fleet wipe followed by a CPA/Exo-strike threat.   

Need resources fast?   Blow a distribution node.    If it pops up negative and takes your last 2,000 crystal, blow another one.   They don't take you below zero, so the low AIP for a quick resource boost cuts the refleet.. of course, running out of nodes is bad news.

Should refleeting be a real problem, just consider making distribution nodes a faction, defaulted to on at 4 so that people can up the number of nodes (hello voluntary AIP) as a way to "balance" their resource needs.

If your strategy is causing lots of refleets, something may be wrong with your plan/strat vs. the AI... or there may be a specific balance issue.

I have not encountered a seriously unbalanced refleet issue outside of a fallen spire campaign in a very very long time. 
 

[Bognor]

Distribution nodes are never Trojans any more.  They never cost you resources.

[Nodor]

I appear to have fallen behind on the patch notes then.