Suggestion: Track number of kills for a ship

[x4000]

Referring to non-starship ships:  What strategies minimize casualties?  I suppose having overwhelming odds, or pitch-perfect unit mixes, but you're going to lose units in any case.  The ones that remain are largely going to be semi-random based on placement and luck.  Or, best case, for super-skilled players who micromanage with aplomb, they can then reap a special benefit and thus get extra bonuses for already doing well.

In general, I am highly wary of any strategy game mechanic that gives further bonuses to players who are already doing well.  "Combos" and things like that work quite well in action-oriented games, but in my opinion in strategy games those just lead to cascading effects of supremacy.  Or, if the game is balanced around your having managed veterancy well, then that is basically penalizing anyone who has poor veterancy (through not micromanaging well or what have you).

With starships the issue is certainly less severe, but it's also such an opaque feature in general.  In a lot of RTS games you have an armory-type building where you can upgrade your units with special health/attack/speed/etc bonuses, and I'm really against that for AI War, too.  When you look at a given ship, you should know what it is.  The threat of 100 infiltrators or a single flagship should be pretty constant in a given game regardless of circumstances.  Having invisible bonuses from unit upgrades or mechanics like veterancy just adds more uncertainty into the equation, so that players then never have the sense of being able to predict the outcome of an engagement.

Not that outcome prediction is easy now by any stretch, but at least each unit behaves in a discrete way based on visible phenomena.  Even with ships such as autocannons, you can see how many of them are at the current planet and use that to predict their power in a gut-feel sort of way.  But if you can't see enemy veterency (and why would you be able to?), that's just adding unpredictability.  Or even on your side, you might have roughly the same forces in one engagement versus another, but you lose one horribly and win the next just barely simply because of a mostly-unseen modifier from veterancy.  That's always struck me as just too obtuse, but I will concede it's very much a matter of personal preference. 

It's one of the design philosophies for AI War, though, so that pretty much rules veterancy out unless it was done in some sort of units-upgrade-to-higher-marks-after-X-number-of-kills mechanic, or something like that.  Because in that situation, nothing changes at all until something is visibly different on the battlefield, which then conforms to making things more knowable from just visually looking at the battlefield.  I'm still not keen on that just yet, though.

[RCIX]

From a gameplay sense, what does veterancy add?  This is not something I have ever been clear on with RTS games that have it.  Sure, it creates an incentive to not let your veteran units die, but it's already more effective to retreat starships rather than letting them get killed (as is the case in most RTS games with centerpiece units).  So, what new interesting decisions really get added?  It seems like just another internal subsystem that adds complexity without function to me, for Starships or in general.  Having ships track their number of kills is something that I agree sounds interesting, though, especially for when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of turrets and so forth.

But at this point if you have the production capacity, you can just toss even starships down the drain because it's quick to build them. Granted, if you're playing like that then you might need a more difficult AI, but some people like to play like that . Combat experience is not something easily wasted, since you can't effectively speed-build veterancy. Thus the reason for at least starships to veteran.

That said, i understand why you're against it for regular ships at a minimum, because losses are inevitable and the complexity isn't worth it

[Spikey00]

Thinking it SupCom wise for a unit such as an experimental (in very simplistic terms, atm tired):  
1. You lose (irrelevant),
2. Additional combat value,
i) regen,
ii) additional hp,
iii) range,
iv) attack/reload,
v) instant hp regen,
3. incentive to keep units alive,
4. disincentive to keep throwing units at X, feeding it more veterancy,
5. "hey, look, I have 1000 kills!"

In SupCom One, the veterancy was useless--but in FA (I assume from demand), it had a far greater role in the game.  It drove under new tactics, new strategies that you can't just mass units, throwing them away against a powerful one such as a commander.  This was one of the great motivations that motivated players to rush with their commanders early game because it could do well combat-wise, and improve as it fought.  In SC1, I'm sure that this was in some form implemented, but wasn't as great because it lacked the veterancy gains.  FA-wise you could rely on your commander to have decent regen and armor gain coupled with your macro when you're on the offensive, instead of the same stats, and in SC you couldn't because it never really improves.

In AI War it should play a similar role--where as I've said countless of times, players are rewarded passively for using their ships responsibly.  Again, Starships are the most worthy to have a veteran system.

Actually, it makes an old unit feel new again when it achieves a new milestone--it is, as if the unit's worth increases ever more, during mid-late game, even during early-game.  "I have to purchase this ship with base stats, then it will gradually improve if I take more care."

It will create a new strat, perhaps Starship specialization, allowing for even further player preferential play.

--

Baseline from all that garbage above:
Units early game, if handled properly with care, will become more useful as the game progresses, instead of the flatline stats that makes sacrificing units less to worry about.  It offers even more incentive for players to use older, outdated units because of their newly earned stats (and will continually).

[quickstix]

I'll be honest, I simply don't have the time to be managing individual ships into different groups based on some veterancy mechanism. I look at my ships in terms of squadrons and fleets, so individual ship loss is just another unit coming off of the production line to fill the empty ranks. Whilst veterancy has a place in small scale RTS games, it's not something that, in my opinion, works in large scale RTS games like AI War.

Fairly neutral on the ship kills issue. Never really look at them myself.

[I-KP]

Veterancy does strike me as being a red herring with regard to AI War.  The 'Mark' system is distinction enough for the fleet ships and even to an extent it is sufficient for the Starship lines (simply consider that the terminilogy for 'Mark' is replaced with a name rather than a number, i.e., The Leech is in effect a Raid MkII).  Starships are already the most effective units in the game by a country mile -- in some situations you don't even need the Fleet ships -- and Veterancy would only end up making these options all the more powerful to wit the inevitable cycle of worrying about the balance of said ships all over again. 

Then we get into the mire of having the AIs gain Veterancy (cf. adaptation) and whether or not such a thing is visible to the player.  (As Chris said: "Why would it be?")  Such a thing then introduces 'random death events' as the suped up AI starship wipes the floor with everything for no perceptible reason.  You then get into the narrative complication of coming up with an awkward plot device that explains why sucha  super-joined up AI only holds beneficial adaptations to single units rather than being awarded globally.

The 'passive reward' argument is flawed because if it's that passive it won't be significant ergo not worth the attention (both in game and in devland), particularly if it exists only to satisfy an 'RP' element (which is an aesthetic concept at best and AI War really hasn't missed that thus far). 

In many ways AI WAR already has an 'experience' bonus that comes from Knowldege.  Granted, it's not directly obtained via combat but often comes as a result of battle thus instead you could argue that training and development is enhanced by this which results in higher Mk variations becoming available.  Adding in another mechanic that makes units imperceptibly better (and it would be almost imperceptible given the scale of the game, not to mention from the GUI pov) only makes things even more (cf. needlessly) complicated.

2d

[Spikey00]

Another unwanted example from SupCom.

Each Unit gets the same veterancy effect every time they gain a level. Every level, they gain a 10% increase of their maximum health, and a fixed bonus in health regeneration. Taking the Cybran T4 Spiderbot, which has a +10 regeneration bonus, we get:

    * Level 0: Health:45 000, Regen: +10/s
    * Level 1: Health:49 500 (+10%), Regen: +20/s (+10/s)
    * Level 2: Health:54 000 (+20%), Regen: +30/s (+20/s)
    * Level 3: Health:58 500 (+30%), Regen: +40/s (+30/s)
    * Level 4: Health:63 000 (+40%), Regen: +50/s (+40/s)
    * Level 5: Health:67 500 (+50%), Regen: +60/s (+50/s)

    * level 1: 25 kills
    * level 2: 50 kills
    * level 3: 75 kills
    * level 4: 100 kills
    * level 5: 125 kills

Also, upon gaining a new veteran level, a unit gets a one time heal of about 25% of their maximum health. This can sometimes lead to the "Feeding on Veterancy Effect", where an Experimental unit drastically increase his survivability by destroying mass T1 units in an opponent's base, gaining veteran status and more health.

In Vanilla SupCom, so effects of veterancy vary by level, but also follow the same rules for every unit:

    * Level 0: Health:65 000, Regen: +0.5/s
    * Level 1: Damage +25%
    * Level 2: Max Health:81 250 (+25%), Heal: 16 250 (25% of base health)
    * Level 3: Damage +25%
    * Level 4: Max Health:97 500 (+25%), Heal: 16 250 (25% of base health)
    * Level 5: Regen: +2/s

    * level 1: 100 kills
    * level 2: 200 kills
    * level 3: 500 kills (impossible)
    * level 4: 1000 kills
    * level 5: 2000 kills

Veterancy and Strategy

Veterancy is a balancing factor which adds to the value of higher tier units when weighed against swarms of lower tier ones. A huge horde of T1 units is far easier to deploy than a smaller number of T2 or T3 units, but veterancy partly ensures that sheer weight of numbers is not sufficient. Experimentals especially become exponentially harder to kill when they gain a few veterancy levels, making it difficult if not impossible to grind them down with endless waves of expendables. This makes it imperative to avoid "feeding" powerful units and you should pull back any unit which is incapable of standing against a stronger one rather than allowing it to be destroyed. One of the most notable examples of the power of veterancy is the ACU. Players using a rush strategy to attempt to destroy the enemy ACU with a swarm of T1 units need to beware that they don't allow the enemy to destroy too many of their units, as a veteran commander becomes an extremely powerful and resilient weapon even without upgrades. A veterancy 5 commander is easily capable of overcoming the only unit normally capable of stopping it in the early game- the opposing commander.

All the above is from http://supcom.wikia.com/wiki/Veteran_status
--

All units have to combat other units to gain veterancy--including the AI, so "spontaneous" veterancy isn't appropriate and shouldn't exist--it should only be a consequence of player action; therefore probably would be most evident upon structures such as Fortresses and similar, where perhaps players were not careful as to use bombers specifically, or, someone like me who just spams when I have an economy.  It ensures that players are not so eager to disregard the more significant forces that the AI has, instead of just spamming and sacrificing units for the greater good (especially late game where players will have enough economy to reconstruct ships).

--

sigh; nothing will be different in controlling units--you can keep doing what you want to and it will work with veterancy.  You can waste all the units you want, but it works in the opposite fashion if you throw low tier/etc. units at SuperFortresses which makes you think otherwise.  It's your choice if you want to use veterancy on your side, but it will do nothing but benefit you even if you don't use it (because it is automatic and passive gains).

[raptor331]

Couldnt of said it any better spikey

[I-KP]

>> You then get into the narrative complication of coming up with an awkward plot device
>> that explains why sucha  super-joined up AI only holds beneficial adaptations to single
>> units rather than being awarded globally."
> including the AI, so "spontaneous" veterancy isn't appropriate and shouldn't exist

...Or you could just not bother to reconcile the narrative loophole at all and hope no-one notices it.   

[Spikey00]

Remember that the plot details are up to the players--the ships belonging to the humans could be operated by humans that learn as they obtain experience.

EDIT:  (Because I thought you were speaking about the AI, not AI of ships.)  =\

[I-KP]

In the same vein one shouldn't go out of one's way to introduce logical inconsistencies.

[I-KP]

Anyway, I'm not going to go on and on with this.  IMO I think Veterancy will not add anything to the game and will only encourage more micro but on the other hand I'd not exactly stop playing if it was introduced (properly).
 

[raptor331]

Why not make it an option u can turn on and off at the lobby menu. That and why not make it starships only how is that to hard to micromanage when there are very few of them?

[I-KP]

Damnit!  Last post on this subject.   

Starships are already super-hard and they simply don't need to get any tougher.  Giving Veterancy to AI starships in an effort to balance this out won't work because the game AI will not be able to husband these ships in the same way that a Human would.  (Arguing that Veterancy bonuses will be so small as to not over-balance anything then begs the question of why bother with it in the first place if it's that insignificant and easy to ignore.)  Then, after a few games, people will complain that the Starships are too tough / Fleet ships are too weak (again) and before you know it an entirely new itteration of Fleet ship re-balancing will take place to bring everything back to square one.  I haven't yet read anyhting here that makes me sit up and think that Veterancy wouldn't be anything less than an awful lot of aggravation for almost no material game-play gain.  That's not to say that there is no way of implementing something similar, I just haven't seen it yet.

And rest.

[Spikey00]

Which is exactly why the enemy AI will have little veterancy gain, except for structures such as Fortresses that are posted on the defense--they need combat, but AI rarely retreats with these Starships, so it limits the AI in benefiting. 

Only the players' Starships generally will improve, but the enemy AI can have their own improve (not to the extent of the humans due to AI use).

[x4000]

My last post on the veterancy topic for now, too.  In the short term (next month or so), there is a literal 0% chance of seeing a veterancy feature simply because I am already wondering how I am going to get all my existing work done.  There's not time to add something like that onto the pile.

Beyond the next short-term while, might we see some sort of veterancy?  This is unlikely, but I'll never say never with something like that.  For the broad reasons:

1. I feel like it runs counter to the general game design in many respects, in emphasizing individual units to a degree not seen elsewhere.  AI War is about group tactics and grand strategy much moreso than individual unit management or intra-squad tactics.  Adding on those sorts of low-level things, which work great in games like Dawn of War or even SupCom, simply doesn't scale well to a game with 10x or 30x more ships.

2. It also tends to reward players who are already doing well, rather than having an "equal and opposite reaction" for doing well.  In other words, it has a chance of flattening out the strategic landscape.  At best, it will be a real amazing pain to balance.

3. The design of a pvp game and a co-op/solo game are two very different beasts.  This is why the co-op of so many RTS games is underwhelming, is because people design for pvp.  I know that in FA the veterancy feature was a big win in the pvp space, but honestly in the co-op space I never even noticed it, and I played FA once or twice a week for a solid year.  My point here is that while I have no doubt this works great in various other games, it is apples to oranges, and I don't feel like it will have a positive or meaningful influence on AI War.  Either the effect will be imperceptible to most players, or it will create undue micromanagement, in all the scenarios I can imagine off the top of my head.

4. This simply isn't a feature that I've ever been that interested in.  Like unit upgrades, unit special abilities that are player-activated, and AI that tries to act like a human proxy, these are simply things that are out of scope for the game (and which I find questionable for my own tastes in other games that have them, even if I otherwise love those games).  Given the rafts and rafts of features in these forums that I am quite excited about, but still don't even yet have time to implement (really, there's an incredible amount of work on the schedule), that means things have to get prioritized.  If everyone was just unanimously dying to have a feature like veterancy, and I was the one stick-in-the-mud who was not enthused, I'd probably bend and go with the community.  But when the community is largely divided or only a subset are interested, I also have to be interested in the feature in order to make it happen, since there is such a huge list of things that more people are interested in.

Granted, this game is going to evolve over a long period of time, and a lot can change in that time.  Maybe I'll come to see veterancy a different way at some point in the future; it's certainly happened before with making everything a completely flow-based economy and with rebalancing the fighter/bomber/frigate triangle, and other things.  So I'm never 100% closed to changing my mind.  But for now, the veterancy thing just isn't on the schedule, and for the short term I simply don't have time to code it in or debate it further.  I'm open to revisiting the topic in a month or two if people have new comments or ideas (and feel free to continue discussing it without me as much as you want in the meantime), but for the moment this is me signing off from this one.  No offense to anyone, but the resource that is in shortest reply for Arcen these days is my time, which I have to budget at some point.