Empire Tree Modification, subdivision of aural notifications and a few other goodies...

from Sins Forums
Empire Tree Variation

A thought for a further variation on the Empire Tree. An ability to filter by actively contested planets would be very useful for finding battles and devoting my attention to where the battles are being played out. It could also have a coloured bar indicating size of fleets and value... I know I'm hitting a contentious point in a rock, paper, scissors game but if a points system was used for ships, where for example:

Fighter/Bomber - 1 point
Scout Frigate - 2 points
Cobalt Frigate - 4 points
Kodiak Cruiser - 10 points
Capital Ships - 20 points

The rest of the ships would need to be fleshed out, but it would be a good visual indication. It could look like this:

xxx xxxx
xxx xxxx
xxx xxxxx

RRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGG

Where the left fleet is red and the right fleet is green. The bar is representing the fact that although red is outnumbered, it has 4 capital ships and 5 cobalts to 13 cobalts.

I understand that tactical maneuvers used correctly can win with only say 33% of the points worth of ships in the system, especially when you've got rock and they've got scissors . But it does give a general idea of fleet strengths. Defenses would also need to be included.

A simpler way of implementing this would be just by calculating relative fleet strength by number of ship and defense hitpoints in orbit.

Aural Notifications

Aural (sound) notifications could be further enhanced by creating increased variability. I would love the following inclusions:

A specific warning for when a tactical group arrives in a system. eg. "Tactical group 1 has arrived at Yakobo." And I would also add to this the above points system allowing for warnings such as "has encountered sparse resistance" (<50% of your fleet), "has encountered moderate resistance" (50-150% of your fleet) and "has encountered overwhelming resistance" (>150% of your fleet).

Thus resulting in the warning: "Tactical Group 4 has arrived in Yacobo and is experiencing overwhelming resistance" which informs you that you have to send reinforcements or get them the hell out of there.

Auto Retreat Feature

An Auto Retreat feature for fleets would be fantastic. It could send them to the nearest friendly planet on an algorithm including reduced time to jump from system and distance away. It would also overrde jump as fleet stance.

AI targeting

A major advantage we have at the moment is our ability to mass target a single enemy ship, and them proceed to destroy them one by one while the computer haphazardly targets ships. One method of making this more advantageous to the computer would be to have an increased probability of targeting ships based on how many ships of the desired type it's targeting.

Eg. Fleet 1 (AI) 4 cobalts and 2 fighters vs. Fleet 2 1 Kodiak, 3 cobalts and 1 fighter

From the AI perspective:
Cobalt 1 targets Kodiak
Cobalt 2 has an equal chance to target any ships, except the fighters, except the Kodiak has a 50% higher bias because it is previously targeted and is targeted again.
Cobalt 3 follows suit.
Cobalt 4 follows suit.

And the retargeting once the kodiak is destroyed would follow suit.

I understand this may be problematic since this may overwhelm AI targeting colony ships, but this would create a greater challenge in the AI if this can be implemented.

Just a few thoughts for making a great game the epic it could be . Keep up the good work


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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Empire Tree Variation

A thought for a further variation on the Empire Tree. An ability to filter by actively contested planets would be very useful for finding battles and devoting my attention to where the battles are being played out. It could also have a coloured bar indicating size of fleets and value... I know I'm hitting a contentious point in a rock, paper, scissors game but if a points system was used for ships, where for example:

Fighter/Bomber - 1 point
Scout Frigate - 2 points
Cobalt Frigate - 4 points
Kodiak Cruiser - 10 points
Capital Ships - 20 points

The rest of the ships would need to be fleshed out, but it would be a good visual indication. It could look like this:

xxx xxxx
xxx xxxx
xxx xxxxx

RRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGG

Where the left fleet is red and the right fleet is green. The bar is representing the fact that although red is outnumbered, it has 4 capital ships and 5 cobalts to 13 cobalts.

I understand that tactical maneuvers used correctly can win with only say 33% of the points worth of ships in the system, especially when you've got rock and they've got scissors . But it does give a general idea of fleet strengths. Defenses would also need to be included.

A simpler way of implementing this would be just by calculating relative fleet strength by number of ship and defense hitpoints in orbit.


I see the kind of feature you want, and sympathize with your motivation, but don't think there is currently a good implementation strategy. The problem is that threat evaluation is a strategic and tactical concept that's too broad and subjective for an algorithm to decisively determine (not to mention performance). When evaluating GUI improvements involving a summary or "readout" such as this one, you might consider whether this rule of thumb suits you:
"If the gauge is so hampered by imprecision that the user does not impart full confidence in the reading, then the gauge is not worth the user's time."

I don't mean to use this to ridicule your suggestion; just the opposite is true. I would love to have this feature nailed down in a deterministic way - it just feels like, if it were a 100% ideal gauge, it would take some element of the strategy out of the hands of the player. And if it's not a 100% ideal gauge, I would quickly learn to disregard it due to its frequent over- and under-estimating the threat values. But that's just my personal opinion on the matter. Now, let's dive into the details, assuming we do want to try and implement this feature.

The factors you're basing your threat evaluation on are all considerable, and since some of these things change very rapidly, it could end up being a performance problem to keep all of this data in memory at once to display on the empire screen. There are some more factors you didn't consider:

1. Battleship levels and classes. I wouldn't want the empire screen alarming me that 6 level 1 Akkans are coming; gauss cannons can usually take care of these because they're so weak. Battleships' power really comes once they have their special abilities, which level 1s seriously lack. On the other hand, if a single level 10 Kol backed by a level 10 Dunov comes in, it could mean death for a large portion of my defenses before I figure out what happened. The true threat level of a battleship depends on its abilities, class, and what kind of support it has.

2. Damage! Yes, sometimes fleets (both your defenses and enemy invaders) are not at full hull/shields, and this should significantly affect their threat rating. For example, after 3 raids of pirates have worn down my gauss cannons to under 1000 hp each, their prowess should be rated (by your scale above) at about that of an Arcova.

Technology. As is often the case in my own experiences, I tend to be more technologically researched than the AI - by quite a lot, actually. So if tech is giving one of the players a huge advantage in the fight, it seems like it should weigh in on the threat rating somehow.


Aural Notifications

Aural (sound) notifications could be further enhanced by creating increased variability. I would love the following inclusions:

A specific warning for when a tactical group arrives in a system. eg. "Tactical group 1 has arrived at Yakobo." And I would also add to this the above points system allowing for warnings such as "has encountered sparse resistance" (<50% of your fleet), "has encountered moderate resistance" (50-150% of your fleet) and "has encountered overwhelming resistance" (>150% of your fleet).

Thus resulting in the warning: "Tactical Group 4 has arrived in Yacobo and is experiencing overwhelming resistance" which informs you that you have to send reinforcements or get them the hell out of there.


What a wonderful idea The only problem is with having someone say the names of all the possible planets in the database - I'm sure it's quite large, and might grow in expansions, etc. Also, it's all stored in text, so players can add their own planet names later. Would the sounds then just be omitted?

They could use Microsoft Sam (the infamously stupid-sounding TTS) or license AT&T Natural's voices... but do you see what I'm saying about the variable names?

Also, including the bit about the resistance level is contingent upon your threat assessment plan pulling through. If that doesn't fly, well, you could still sit someone down to say "Tactical Group 4 is ", and then have them say "...taking light damage", "...taking heavy damage", "nearing defeat" based on a more objective assessment: the overall amount of hitpoints and armor in the fleet.

For example, once the average shield strength is below, say, 50%, you could report the light damage warning. Once either 25% of the "original fleet that existed when the battle began" is completely destroyed, or the average shield strength is 0%, you could report the moderate damage. Once average hull integrity is less than 50%, that'd be nearing defeat. The only issue here is finding an effective statistical function to summarize the health of the fleet; average may not be it. Any root-mean-square fans?


Auto Retreat Feature

An Auto Retreat feature for fleets would be fantastic. It could send them to the nearest friendly planet on an algorithm including reduced time to jump from system and distance away. It would also overrde jump as fleet stance.


I don't understand - do you mean a button to click that auto-retreats them, or an AI action that makes them auto-retreat when they are heavily damaged? If you are suggesting a button to do all the stuff you described, I think that would be tremendously useful, and a great idea. 100% supported. I would however oppose an automatic (i.e. not user-prompted) retreat algorithm. AI players are an exception; we assume they are "thinking" much more than the AI that kinda micro-manages the human-controlled units


AI targeting

A major advantage we have at the moment is our ability to mass target a single enemy ship, and them proceed to destroy them one by one while the computer haphazardly targets ships. One method of making this more advantageous to the computer would be to have an increased probability of targeting ships based on how many ships of the desired type it's targeting.

Eg. Fleet 1 (AI) 4 cobalts and 2 fighters vs. Fleet 2 1 Kodiak, 3 cobalts and 1 fighter

From the AI perspective:
Cobalt 1 targets Kodiak
Cobalt 2 has an equal chance to target any ships, except the fighters, except the Kodiak has a 50% higher bias because it is previously targeted and is targeted again.
Cobalt 3 follows suit.
Cobalt 4 follows suit.

And the retargeting once the kodiak is destroyed would follow suit.

I understand this may be problematic since this may overwhelm AI targeting colony ships, but this would create a greater challenge in the AI if this can be implemented.


Frogboy is a big advocate of building challenging AIs by having them comply with the rules, but do clever things that are competitive with the kind of things that players do. Your idea is perfectly reasonable to expect the AI team to implement. This game has a definite advantage in focus-firing, particularly when you send all your bombers and frigates onto enemy capital ships.


Just a few thoughts for making a great game the epic it could be . Keep up the good work


Thanks for your post! I hope I haven't stepped on your toes at all - these are some good ideas, so keep 'em coming.

Regards,

-allquixotic

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
This game has a definite advantage in focus-firing, particularly when you send all your bombers and frigates onto enemy capital ships.


There is actually a disadvantage of focus firing. As all of your ships fire on one target, it's shield mitigation goes up, meaning it takes less damage. This means that by focus firing, your total damage output actually goes down. This isn't the case with unshielded targets however, so focus all you want on those gauss platforms.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Even if just a contested system filter, without threat evaluations, was added to the empire tree, I'd know I'd done the game a great favour.

I agree with your limitaitons on the threat algorithm... it's just a simple way to see if you're massively outnumbered and are assured of annihilation or you so outnumber them you can leave the AI to mop up - it allows you to focus your attention on where it is most needed - the battles that are in the balance.

And the auto-retreat is supposed to be a clicky-button that you have access to when either a ship or fleet is selected. It would need a notification if phase-jump inhibitors are present. But it allows you again to save your all-important attention for something else instead of manually ordering a retreat. Computer determined auto-retreat functions would be useless for the same reason that the threat evaluation is useless - the computer just can't tell if it's going to win or lose.

The aural notifications are good if a limited library of custom names are used, but beyond that, you could have them say "your planet," "neutral planet" or "hostile planet in star system Alpha" would still be useful. Even if it doesn't say exactly what is shown, having the text displayed still conveys the necessary info while a generic voice warning could sound.

And thanks for you feedback... I'll keep on the job
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Interesting. I was wondering why shield mitigation goes up when something takes rapid damage! I knew that "Shield Mitigation" couldn't be a bad thing; I just never made this connection as such.

Very informative.

However - would you agree with me that there is a distinct tactical advantage to taking out a key enemy battleship by focus-firing? Say, the Akkan and its targeting advantages, or the Sova whose bombers are harassing your Kodiaks?

I understand now that the shield mitigation dynamics are a counterbalance to focus firing, but it seems that there are still circumstances where you can benefit from focus firing on particular targets -- getting rid of a battleship being a prime example.

The alternative is to allow the battleship to continue using its special abilities while your ships gradually damage their fleet wholesale - slowly wearing down both their frigates and their battleships.

I guess I'll have to do some more "field research" on this particular subject, to see in what circumstances focus firing is more effective

Regards,

-allquixotic
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Even if just a contested system filter, without threat evaluations, was added to the empire tree, I'd know I'd done the game a great favour.


Yes! That idea crossed my mind as I was playing my latest 100 planets game. I would love to have a filter, or something in the options/UI menu which would allow me to only have contested planets in the empire window.

Planets which have battles ongoing on the top, then planets which had battles in the last 5 minutes (allows me to repair/reinforce their defenses), planets in danger of being culture flipped, and enemy planets which will be culture flipped to my side.

That's for me all important things that I always need to know.