Alpha .702 now out!

[GrimerX]

3) still don't like swarming behavior. We are supposed to want to move our ships around, but when we do, they go spiraling out of control. It actually made me quit tonight, totally had it.

I've been going back and forth -- while I don't want the completely static movement of AI War the swarming doesn't work well either.  Right now the fighters are the hardest to use near fixed installations because they move in such large areas -- I have a hard time positioning them.  The powerful slow ships are much easier to position.  The net "feeling" should be the opposite -- fast nimble ships are the ones that can get close because of how they move, the bigger ships better have large shields to absorb shots because they're gonna get hit. 

If I were to try something it would be to make the behavior a more true "flocking" behavior.  I don't think you have so many moving parts that the CPU budget is an issue even with a full n-body type simulation [though thinking more -- I probably am not running battles at anything near full scale.  Maybe you can partition or slice it across frames if needed.]

1) Ships should have a "force" that pushes them away from enemy fire zones (I'm thinking in terms of physics models to define motion -- springs and gravity, etc.).  I can see a fast-moving fighter find itself in a zone because of a trajectory that forced it in there, but it should peel away pretty quick.   Kind of like the first run against the death star before it's shields were down.
2) Ships similarly should be repelled from their own friendly ships, not to get away from them but to avoid collision.  This can be done as above but with a force that has a sharper fall-off curve so it only influences nearby objects. 
3) Let ships vary their speeds based on what they are trying to do -- that will add some realism and get rid of the "swirling" behavior

I guess it's a bit of a style choice -- I prefer the squadrons to have emergent behavior over the orders I can currently give them (move here, attack here).  Having purely deterministic behavior is, though, a lot simpler and maybe the way to go for a v1 because getting the flocking right isn't cheap, but I really think it could be great if done well.

 

[GrimerX]

3) Let ships vary their speeds based on what they are trying to do -- that will add some realism and get rid of the "swirling" behavior

Ah, I see you are doing this already.  It's an improvement.  Next step is to make the ships more wary of the turrets.

Solar Map feedback: Turn on the Planet Overlay by default for new players.  I just found it and it explained a bunch of stuff for me.  Very useful.

[Misery]

Okay!  I looked back at older blogs and saw what my goal is supposed to be.   ...how I'm supposed to accomplish it is a mystery, but now I can go about figuring that out.

And I can test things faster/better with that.

Also, I wanted to mention something related to this:

Next step is to make the ships more wary of the turrets.

Ok, something that occurs to me with the turrets:  Some of the formations that are there, even if fixed up a bit, may still have a tendancy to cause a requirement of a bit too much micro.   Squeezing ships in between small holes between turrets.... this, I'd really rather not have to do.  While micro can be fun in some games.... depending on the game.... I often much prefer to always be making mostly broad strategy decisions, simply directing fleets where they need to go, and occaisionally selecting a target ship for them if something stands out as being a priority.  Alot of micro really doesnt feel right at all for this game.

Something like the half ring is a constellation shape that makes sense to me.  Blocks off what is behind it in a "wide" sort of way, and means that you have to circle around to try to get behind it.   Yet you dont have to be super specific about the pathing, and it's also not super-irritating to deal with, as the full ring ones (which are the problem) currently are.

The AI could of course also be using this to their advantage, streaming around the sides and coming at you from those directions, trying to cut off your path back from both ways.  The "sit on turrets" behavior is the OTHER big part of the problem here, at least for me.   In most RTS games, simply hoarding units at your base the whole time is suicide.  And it's just really frustrating and can feel rather unfair at times.

Currently, those really seem like the biggest issues to me.   The concepts behind the constellations and whatnot are fine, but the execution is a bit off in these ways.


Totally forgot what else I was gonna say.


EDIT:  Ok, after a little time with it, I can say, yeah, the solar map sim stuff is pretty darn neat.  I'm still not ENTIRELY sure what's going on.... this being partly because ALOT of the options available to do with different races seem a little glitchy and a great many of them say things like "error, should not be shown" or other confusing errors, the usual hilarious alpha/beta style sorts of stuff, but what I have messed with is already pretty fascinating.   I can see the Dwarf Fortress sort of thing going on here... I can influence these guys, but they WILL do something stupid that messes me up if they feel like it, and I have to be ready for that.  That's pretty good, I like that. 

If you can get the combat stuff to be this good, you'll have quite the game on your hands.  I'll be messing with it a bunch more over the weekend.  Kinda started on it a bit too late today.

One thing that DOES occur to me though:  This game might have a tough learning curve.   I personally never consider this to be a bad thing, as pretty much all of the games I consider my favorites have tough learning curves, but it certainly influences buying decisions.   Of course, with you guys, I think people sorta come to expect this going into it, so it might not have as much negative effect    Certainly most fans of your other games will be finding it to be a good thing, likely.

[Professor Paul1290]

Ok, I don't want to jump to conclusions and freak out just yet, but the "we're going to be retooling combat in the game, and this won't apply anymore" ticket updates on the Mantis are starting to creep me out a bit.

Are we looking at a rollback to whatever combat model there was previous to this, removing fleet ships and going with broadside to broadside capital ship combat, or something similarly drastic like that?

[Cyborg]

I don't know. I feel like the implementation of the entire combat system is beyond minor repair. I don't think it's just the constellations. We are cheesing every battle just to get back to the solar map, which is where most of us wanted to play even before we knew the combat model. And by the way, if Dwarf fortress is the inspiration, the combat model there is more about all of your preparations and decisions leading up to it than the battle itself, which largely takes care of itself.


Someone else mentioned Bionic dues/turn-based, and I have to agree. It would've been better to have thoughtful battles rather than RTS. The closest approximations we have of successful things like this are starsector(starfarer), AI war, and gratuitous space battles.


The little-known starsector has a very compelling real-time ship piloting system http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di8qSM0TVdA


Now, judging from previous titles, Chris doesn't mind being reminiscent or nostalgic, but he doesn't ape any other title directly. And I'm not saying that he should. Right now, the combat just isn't fun, and I think that if this is the part of the game we are spending the most player time on, it has to be fun.


I read the part about layoffs, and I think we all gathered that success is integral to the continuation of the team. I guessed this already, but I was thinking it was dependent on the sale of this product. Knowing that our feedback has the potential to affect real people with personal lives and families, that's a difficult thing for me. I'm one of the most direct/honest face value people on this forum. I was always incapable of kissing ass. My mother told me I needed to learn how to "play the game." Still haven't learned, can't stomach social chameleon behavior. At this point, just have to embrace who I am. But it doesn't mean that I don't care. On the contrary, I am a fan of arcen, a consistent supporter, and I root for your personal successes and team successes. It's a heavy thing for me to think that something I said or we said affects the same people I am cheering for. But it's done in trying to make the game better and give you the best possible product on launch day, which hopefully is what's best for the team.


Best of luck.

[Teal_Blue]

I have a tendency to say what i think, sometimes too much, or without understanding what someone else means, or what the public may prefer vs what i prefer. Which is probably not very helpful. Anyway, I still offer my ideas and suggestions, though i haven't even seen anything except the screen shots.

But after what Chris said, I think I'm just going to keep my mouth shut and just let those that are in the testing and the dev team figure out what they want. I just had a thought that i might have been 'stirring the pot' so to speak, when it would have been best if i stayed out of it.

Anyway, I hope everything goes well, because i would hate to see anyone have to lose their job. But I'll just kind of hang out, but not say any more until everything goes 1.0 or release. Anyway, see you then, take care.

-Teal

[Misery]

I don't know. I feel like the implementation of the entire combat system is beyond minor repair. I don't think it's just the constellations. We are cheesing every battle just to get back to the solar map, which is where most of us wanted to play even before we knew the combat model. And by the way, if Dwarf fortress is the inspiration, the combat model there is more about all of your preparations and decisions leading up to it than the battle itself, which largely takes care of itself.

I think DF is just one of many inspirations, or that's what I seem to remember them saying.

That being said, yeah, I can agree with most of that.  Though, I dont think a combat system that just resolves itself is the right way to go here.  The whole thing, at least the way it's intended to be, makes me think of Fallen Enchantress.  That game is a 4X sort and plays quite a bit like Civ in many ways, but with a totally seperate combat mode that you enter rather than just smashing 2 armies into each other and getting some statistics.  And one of the best parts about this is that it breaks up the gameplay nicely.... so you're not JUST on the world map all the time.  You can go onto the seperate tactical maps and do the actual battles between groups, and get your lasers and explosions and dragons and complicated battle tactics and such that way.  That whole game was done very well, so this concept works out quite nicely; both the worldmap and battle bits are pretty well done.    If this game does that right, it'll be that much better than it would be if it were JUST the solar map.   Or at least that's my thoughts on it.

I'm hoping though that they wont have to alter the combat TOO much though, mostly since they already showed a video of it and all.

I read the part about layoffs, and I think we all gathered that success is integral to the continuation of the team. I guessed this already, but I was thinking it was dependent on the sale of this product. Knowing that our feedback has the potential to affect real people with personal lives and families, that's a difficult thing for me. I'm one of the most direct/honest face value people on this forum. I was always incapable of kissing ass. My mother told me I needed to learn how to "play the game." Still haven't learned, can't stomach social chameleon behavior. At this point, just have to embrace who I am. But it doesn't mean that I don't care. On the contrary, I am a fan of arcen, a consistent supporter, and I root for your personal successes and team successes. It's a heavy thing for me to think that something I said or we said affects the same people I am cheering for. But it's done in trying to make the game better and give you the best possible product on launch day, which hopefully is what's best for the team.

Ugh, yeah, this bit has been bothering me as well.  It seems to be a part of testing for games like this (for smaller studios, that is) overall, not just for Arcen here.... that sort of feeling of hoping that whatever you just said doesnt end up wrecking the project somehow.  Like "Oh geez the dev went and implemented the idea I randomly came up with, I hope I didn't just blow the game outta the water" and such.   That bit with the layoffs sucks the most. 

Here's hoping it wont come to that.

[Apathetic]

Ugh, yeah, this bit has been bothering me as well.  It seems to be a part of testing for games like this (for smaller studios, that is) overall, not just for Arcen here.... that sort of feeling of hoping that whatever you just said doesnt end up wrecking the project somehow.  Like "Oh geez the dev went and implemented the idea I randomly came up with, I hope I didn't just blow the game outta the water" and such.   That bit with the layoffs sucks the most. 

Yea, I hope everything goes well for them.  The only portion I can do is attempt to provide useful feedback, and hope that the portions which aren't workable are promptly ignored. 

Combat seems a bit wonky to me with the way it's currently setup.  I really hope that it feels better after the next update, I don't want to much time discussing what will potentially be changed quite a bit in a later iteration.  The one thing I will say is that I'd love an auto-win button for testing the solar system portion of the game.  I want to play with that more, but it seems to get more BP I need to do more combat, which due to the turret setup takes a while to break in and win.

[Cyborg]

The whole thing, at least the way it's intended to be, makes me think of Fallen Enchantress.  That game is a 4X sort and plays quite a bit like Civ in many ways,

That game is a blast!

[jerith]

The little-known starsector has a very compelling real-time ship piloting system http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di8qSM0TVdA

That looks like fun. They also have some of my money now. (No idea when I'm actually going to play it, though. What little gaming time I currently have is almost entirely devoted to TLF.)

[Mick]

I'm really intrigued on where you guys will go with this. Going by which mantis ticket were closed it sounds like some pretty drastic changes are taking place.

[keith.lamothe]

To those who have expressed something in the "it's bittersweet to give feedback when there's the possibility it will cause a lot of extra work, and thus possibly schedule slippage, and thus possibly layoffs" : the concern is appreciated, but in case there's any ambiguity please know that the best thing you can do is provide your honest feedback just like you would normally ("normally" for some of you is more blunt than it is for others, but we're all on the same team and that's generally pretty clear).  If we wound up releasing something substandard that wouldn't really help anyone.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback, going back to the code mine

[orzelek]

*looks around for combat news*

*pulls out worn patience card* 

[nas1m]

*looks around for combat news*

*pulls out worn patience card* 

*nasim makes to join orzelek in a joint-effort in patience holding up a certain cardboard card of his own making*

[x4000]

The changes here are very nontrivial, and involve some stuff at the solar map level (to set up the scenarios in which you will be participating now), as well as to the actual scenarios themselves.  I hope that we'll be able to have something for you to play this week, but it's going to be a really big undertaking for us to get this next batch of combat stuff ready for you.  I think you'll really like what you see, though, based on all the feedback we've had so far.