Introduce "crowding" penalties?

[Professor Paul1290]

I sort of feel like combat would go flow more naturally if combatants were discouraged from crowding their units together too much. A lot other settings both fictional and real life provide incentives for this, and this game arguably does too in certain situations. However, I think it would be nice to have something that is always present and obvious from the beginning.

This is a rather vague idea and there's probably a lot of ways to approach this.


I have a couple proposals that may or may not fit:


1. Introduce a squad overlap penalty to represent slowness of communication between squads.
Basically units take a slight accuracy/damage/speed penalty when extremely close to friendly units belonging to another squad.
This is taking inspiration from real-life ground combat somewhat, though in a rather abstract way.
You often don't want squads overlapping too much when you can avoid it as members of different squads tend to have various slight difficulties coordinating with each other, moving around each other, avoiding friendly fire, and so on. This is partly due to how communications work. In order to avoid each squad member having to filter through a flood of radio chatter from everybody, squads usually have their own communications net that only encompasses members of the same squad. Members of a squad also already know how to maneuver around each other while maneuvering around members of other squads requires more comms. Because of this coordination between members of the same squad is often faster and more efficient than communication between members of different squads, and overlapping squads can often cause more situations where units get in each others way than would occur normally.
Inflicting a accuracy/damage/speed penalty on units that are in very close or near point-blank proximity to friendly members of another squad would be a nice abstract way to represent this. On the other hand, the implementation of this might be a bit weird depending on how things work under the hood.


2. Introduce small amounts of AOE and/or cone of fire to ordinary weapons.
Make it so a lot of ordinary weapons have a slight but not too significant AOE or cone of fire.
This is somewhat more "physical" than the above.
The idea behind this is that guns aren't 100% precise and explosives are likely to have some degree of AOE and that units would not want to crowd with each other and take unnecessary damage. A bunch of units crowded together are going to be more vulnerable to machine gun fire or missile than a bunch of units with proper spacing. Introducing a slight AOE can be a way to represent this and it would be more obvious to the player than the already existing idea that crowded units are easier to hit with misses.
This is pretty straightforward and easy to understand. On the other hand this would require units themselves to maintain spacing or it may encourage an absurd amount of micromanagement.

[Cyborg]

I believe this is yet another comment about the swarming behavior ships and what feels like the lack of incentive to control the battle. The nature of the beast for direct combat is the numbers game. For activating targets, it can mean the same thing or doing suicide rushes. But what you are describing for a solution is hinting at the same problem some of us are having with combat. What would make combat fun and rewarding? We all have different ideas. Mine was to introduce a more populated battlefield with other races, each going about their business and allowing you to interfere as you will (just like the solar map!). But who knows?

[Professor Paul1290]

I believe this is yet another comment about the swarming behavior ships and what feels like the lack of incentive to control the battle. The nature of the beast for direct combat is the numbers game. For activating targets, it can mean the same thing or doing suicide rushes. But what you are describing for a solution is hinting at the same problem some of us are having with combat. What would make combat fun and rewarding? We all have different ideas. Mine was to introduce a more populated battlefield with other races, each going about their business and allowing you to interfere as you will (just like the solar map!). But who knows?

Of course it can be looked at in a very general sense like that. I was mostly focusing on this particular issue because I think there is room for improvement here.

The game does have some incentives to maneuver according to the environment. Moving to activate technology or to get around asteroids and turrets for example. Having to avoid detection and reaching objectives can also fall under this.
If ambient race ships were introduced then that would also be nice because provides another environment reason to maneuver.


The reason I poke at the "crowding" issue specifically and why I think it is worth addressing is because it has to do with something I don't think the game has enough of, incentive to maneuver units relative to each other.
Once you are discouraged from allowing groups to take up the same space then maneuvering them relative to each other becomes more important, and that makes combat more involved in a lot of situations.
Even if you are keeping them right next to each other they are still going to be in separate directions relative to each other and that means their arrangement matters, especially upon contact with the enemy. Even the closest thing you can maintain to a "blob" without suffering a penalty will need some degree management to make sure the right stuff hits first.

The nice thing about this is that it's potential effects would almost always be there regardless of the situation. It introduces a small amount of complexity even in the worst case 1v1 face-off.

[Misery]

I believe this is yet another comment about the swarming behavior ships and what feels like the lack of incentive to control the battle. The nature of the beast for direct combat is the numbers game. For activating targets, it can mean the same thing or doing suicide rushes. But what you are describing for a solution is hinting at the same problem some of us are having with combat. What would make combat fun and rewarding? We all have different ideas. Mine was to introduce a more populated battlefield with other races, each going about their business and allowing you to interfere as you will (just like the solar map!). But who knows?

Aye, this.   It does seem like simply building a bazillion ships quicky and sending them over in one great heap is way too effective (in a battle without constellations).   And part of it is the lack of map features and such too.

Something definitely needs to be done, since only ever needing to focus on one target at a time isnt very interesting; there's no real reason to spread out forces right now.

Heck if I know what to suggest though....

[Teal_Blue]

I believe this is yet another comment about the swarming behavior ships and what feels like the lack of incentive to control the battle. The nature of the beast for direct combat is the numbers game. For activating targets, it can mean the same thing or doing suicide rushes. But what you are describing for a solution is hinting at the same problem some of us are having with combat. What would make combat fun and rewarding? We all have different ideas. Mine was to introduce a more populated battlefield with other races, each going about their business and allowing you to interfere as you will (just like the solar map!). But who knows?

Aye, this.   It does seem like simply building a bazillion ships quicky and sending them over in one great heap is way too effective (in a battle without constellations).   And part of it is the lack of map features and such too.

Something definitely needs to be done, since only ever needing to focus on one target at a time isnt very interesting; there's no real reason to spread out forces right now.

Heck if I know what to suggest though....

I am not in the alpha yet, so my questions may not be worth very much, but how do other space combat games handle battles? Perhaps there is something there that can be useful here?
Just a thought.

-Teal

[Misery]

That's a good question..... aint one I can answer myself though.   Aint familiar with space-themed RTS type games, though it seems there are alot of them.

Taking inspiration from some of them might not be a bad idea with this one.


One way or another, things like positioning and attack angles and all of that sort of thing need to come into play more with this game.   That seems to be what it lacks right now;  alot of battles become just heaps of things crashing into other heaps of things in a straight line.   Not counting the constellation bits.   There's currently not enough reason to do things other than Zerg rush.

But how to tackle that problem here?  I know how land/sea games tend to do it, but with a space one you've typically got really blank, open maps, no terrain to deal with, no crowded areas.


And something else occurs to me:  Once the constellation bits are balanced out better, what's to stop the player from still just using a concentrated full-fleet-at-once rush on each position in order?  The enemy currently doesnt much leave their defensive positions within the defenses, and there's no logical or tactical reason to split your forces up at all.... that might be a problem as well.

[Teal_Blue]

That's a good question..... aint one I can answer myself though.   Aint familiar with space-themed RTS type games, though it seems there are alot of them.

Taking inspiration from some of them might not be a bad idea with this one.


One way or another, things like positioning and attack angles and all of that sort of thing need to come into play more with this game.   That seems to be what it lacks right now;  alot of battles become just heaps of things crashing into other heaps of things in a straight line.   Not counting the constellation bits.   There's currently not enough reason to do things other than Zerg rush.

But how to tackle that problem here?  I know how land/sea games tend to do it, but with a space one you've typically got really blank, open maps, no terrain to deal with, no crowded areas.


And something else occurs to me:  Once the constellation bits are balanced out better, what's to stop the player from still just using a concentrated full-fleet-at-once rush on each position in order?  The enemy currently doesnt much leave their defensive positions within the defenses, and there's no logical or tactical reason to split your forces up at all.... that might be a problem as well.

I think someone already suggested what i am about to 're-suggest'? Anyway, your mention of a blank space with no 'terrain' to use as land battles do made this pop into my head, but what if there were not just 'asteroids, meteors (moving natural objects) and wormholes that can trap either player of ai ships, then we could possibly 'seed' a map with those objects, make a different  type of area, or an area that has different possibilities.

In this way, perhaps the player can use some objects for cover, or for stealthily approaching the ai ships (maybe they don't 'have' to know you are there?) and trap areas, or 'black holes' that can trap a ship, immobilize it (for x time? Or until player/ai uses 'afterburners' (a boost to propulsion that is found in an artifact on the map?) to break free?  There might be 'monsters' that attack any ship within a certain distance? Or perhaps radiation 'zones' or hot spots that damage ships of either side that get close enough?

In this way perhaps enough 'difference' from map to map for variety and replayability can be worked out. In addition, perhaps with enough of these 'battlefield objects'  and their range on  each map, then different tactics may have to be employed by the player, but also the ai in battles?

Of course this is only an idea, and i have no clue as to how easily or difficult this would be to get into the game. But if it adds variety of tactics and map layouts and composition, then perhaps even a simplified version of something like this is worthwhile?

This was not originally my idea,  i think someone else suggested it first, but i can't remember who.   Sorry.
-Teal

[x4000]

Very good thoughts here in this thread, and it's something I've been thinking about as well actually.   I think that, mechanically, there is a lot to love here about the combat (at least for me).  The swarming behavior is something I do think is important for interceptors and hypersonic pods, but something I intend to get rid of for other ship types.

Professor Paul1290: I think that you raise a lot of good points about the lack of need to split your forces, and it's something that bothers the heck out of me as well at the moment.  I've been spending a lot of time noodling on that, and I think I'm headed in the direction of something fruitful.  Not quite ready to share yet, as it's too many fragmented thoughts to write out coherently.  But something definitely must be done.  This is, to me, analogous to the "ball of doom" problem in AI War.

Misery: I agree that having the focus be on just a single (or trio, or whatever) of enemy ships in the general case is dull.  I think that it is actually a valid way to have combat work in some cases -- when attacked by assassins or the AFA, for instance, or when you are attacking an outpost to destroy it.  But outside of those contexts, I think that probably this model needs to shift in the sense that your objectives are different.

Cyborg: I'm addressing you last on this, because I think you have the most divergent comments, and I think they are also right on the money.  I had not thought of the players getting involved in battles between two third-party forces and doing things to interfere as desired.  That's brilliant, and would be really fun.  I'm not sure if that is feasible within our time schedule, but we'll see.  There are other fundamental issues that you mentioned, and I also could not agree more. 

Teal: Actually asteroids and similar are already a part of battles!

---

When you get right down to it, I think that these all have to do mainly with the makeup of the objectives and the battlefield.  There are new "defense missions" that we are introducing hopefully later today that do require a different sort of behavior, and I think that those will be a nice bit of variety and actually addresses all of the concerns here in the context of that specific mode (swarming aside).  THAT said, it's just one mode of combat, like constellations versus not, and the set of objectives in defense missions are too limited in order to be widely enjoyable if they were repeated too often.  Kind of like the "empty space" ship battles with assassins and the AFA.  Those are actually fine, just in extreme moderation.

So, to me, what this really boils down to is trying to think up lots and lots of different kinds of objectives and scenarios, where when you enter a battlefield you have different things to focus on rather than always just "kill that thing over there," and there are a variety of ways to go about it -- and most importantly, incentives to split up your forces in as many of those as possible.  I don't want to homogenize things, though -- I think the existing modes are all good, it's just that some of them don't have enough legs to be done super frequently like they currently are.

I think we're all pretty much on the same page, and we all have different ideas on how to solve this.  The thing is -- and this is what I love -- why choose one way?  I think that choosing as many ways as can feasibly fit within our timeframe is actually the best course of action, because that way no one mode wears out its welcome.  I adore the constellations, personally, but I get that having those be too frequent in terms of battles would be extremely wearing.  Etc.

[Teal_Blue]

Sounds really great!  I like the idea of your different 'modes'. Really nice and makes things different from encounter to encounter. Sorry to repeat the thing about the 'asteroids', but it sounded interesting to me, i didn't realize it was already in there, haha. Anyway, thank you for the quick response. Looking forward to trying out the game.

-Teal

[x4000]

Np!

[echo2361]

Very good thoughts here in this thread, and it's something I've been thinking about as well actually.   I think that, mechanically, there is a lot to love here about the combat (at least for me).  The swarming behavior is something I do think is important for interceptors and hypersonic pods, but something I intend to get rid of for other ship types.

I'm glad to hear swarming will remain the behavior for smaller ships. Since they lack powerful defenses they have to rely on agility which means swarming makes sense for them while it doesn't for larger ships.

So, to me, what this really boils down to is trying to think up lots and lots of different kinds of objectives and scenarios, where when you enter a battlefield you have different things to focus on rather than always just "kill that thing over there," and there are a variety of ways to go about it -- and most importantly, incentives to split up your forces in as many of those as possible.  I don't want to homogenize things, though -- I think the existing modes are all good, it's just that some of them don't have enough legs to be done super frequently like they currently are.

Most of the time in RTS games it makes sense to keep all your forces in one giant death ball, supporting each other and moving as a juggernaut across a map. However, when I think back on the times when I've felt compelled to split up my forces, it usually has to do with time constraints. Some games will literally have timers running to kill multiple objectives, forcing me to split up my forces to make it in time. I'm not a fan of this approach because it feels kind of forced and is immersion breaking if I just lose the battle because time ran out.

However, other games create more of a soft timer by adding a narrative explaining how it will become more difficult to complete all the objectives if time expires. This is usually in the form of a large group of enemy reinforcements arriving in X minutes, a super weapon recharging in Y minutes, and so on. In these situations, I feel compelled to split up my forces to take out multiple objectives before the overall mission becomes harder when the timer runs out. It may still be possible to win once the timer event occurs, but it is just much more difficult.

Maybe some tactical combats in TLF could include elements involving soft timers? For example, there could be a mission to take out 4 orbital storage facilities that are currently lightly/moderately defended. However, in X minutes the local space defense fleet will respond to the alert and add a lot of enemy forces to complicate things. This would encourage the player to try and beat the mission before the enemy reinforcements arrive, thus leading the player to be more strategic in splitting his forces rather than just traveling from objective to objective in a giant death ball of ships.

A variant of this could even have implications on the strategic map. If you destroy all the objectives in X or less amount of time, your attack so was lightning fast that the enemy has no idea who actually hit them. This could lessen/negate any negative feelings they would normally have towards you for attacking them if they have no idea who actually hit them. They might like you a little less since they have suspicions about you, but they have no proof so it isn't the same level of hatred. Once again, this encourages the player to split forces to achieve victory as quickly as possible instead of lumbering around the map, clearing objectives in one giant swarm.

[x4000]

We tend to get a lot of rage at timers when we do those, generally.  But then again, things like periodic waves have worked well in AI War.

In AI War we did have problems with "balls of doom" on single planets, but actually that game was really good about getting you to split up your overall fleet between many planets, because you had many places to defend.

I think that having shifting weaknesses in enemy forces that you want to be able to exploit when the time is right, and/or multiple objectives that require simultaneous (or nearly so) completion, might be good.

[Professor Paul1290]

Having more varied scenarios and objectives will definitely help, especially since this is a small part of a larger game. Different scenarios will provide variety over the course of the larger game and would probably "connect" the combat to the larger game better.

That said, I think the plain "1v1 in empty space" scenario should looked at and made more involved even if only slightly. Even though it doesn't and shouldn't carry combat on its own, it can be thought of as a basic building lock that other scenarios are made up of. Because of that even small changes to that sort of encounter will be multiplied across other scenarios.

For example, let's say putting units in a formation somehow made them stronger against targets in a certain direction (I'm not sure this would fit the game, it's just for the sake of example). This maybe makes it so you move units groups around slightly and set a formation and direction for them when taking the enemy head on in "empty space 1v1", so it's only a small thing there.
However when you have multiple enemies, have to defend something, or have to confront some other more complicated scenario the effect becomes more significant. You suddenly have to worry about engaging enemies in multiple directions and trying to account for each one is more involved, what only took second to deal with in "1v1 empty space" becomes a much bigger concern.

[x4000]

Totally agreed on that, too.