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Phase Jump Disco Hopscotch Patty Cake

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Phase Jump Disco Hopscotch Patty Cake

Repost into the correct forums subcategory

from Sins Forums
I was wondering if anyone who has played against the normal ai/hard ai has noticed this. I was playing Singleplayer last night, (mind you I'd rather play MP, but we get a we'rd game crash dump error, when our systems are 100% stable and up to date), and after colonizing an outer desert planet that was next to a wormhole and also a choke point, I started to build it up. Well, of course, I get no real attacks from the ai so I continue on my way upgrading tech and planets.

After I had a very sizeable force built up and good tech I went forward to blow some stuff up, this is where the problems come in. This was a 3 person FFA, 2 computers and me. I would go to the wormhole just to find the ai chilling in the wormhole doing nothing, then instantly deciding to target me. They didn't have an alliance or anything that I was aware of. Now mind you I was able to handle both their fleets so I started micro'in to attack and kill their capitol ships. I managed to kill 2 of about 7, but then they all retreat into the wormhole. I follow them and then the come back to the other wormhole. So then I have to follow and they end up destroying an astroid.

My problem comes down to this. The computer hopscotches like a bunch of punk ferrywinkles. Not just in wormholes, but also with phase jumps. I'll phase jump a fleet and the instant my phase jump starts, they are phase jumping a full fleet into the planet I'm leaving. I phase back, they retreat and don't fight, even though they have a force almost the same size as mine. The computer will never fight me if it has even 1 less ship then me. That does not seem like it desirable gameplay mechanic. It wouldn't be so bad if I weren't phase jumping back and forth the ENTIRE GAME.

In fact, the only time I kill his forces is if I phase ontop of him and kill his capitol ships before they can retreat. I've also noticed I can bait them by sending in weaker forces ahead and letting them think they can go rape the force, then phase jumping on top, but again, they instantly retreat, many times before a battle can even begin.

I then went to attack one AI player, well, of course the instant I phased to kill his planet, the other ai player, orange, would come and attack my now empty planet, I return, he runs. Wash, rinse, repeat. It is very frustrating. I would notice that sometimes the two ai would attack eachother, so they definitely had no alliances, but I never saw them attack each other's planets.

In closing, I absolutely HATE, DESPISE, LOATHE, the phase jump hopscotch you have to play with the computer. I realize now that if I want to beat the computer I have to have 3 fleets, 1 for attacking and 2 for defending when the computers decide to team up 90% of the time in an FFA.

Anyone else notice something like this? Have any useful or at least non-troll comments? I'll take constructive criticism. I realize I shoulda had 2 fleets and that woulda saved me a lot of headache, but damn the hopping around instantly crap.
29,361 views 55 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
Ah, I miss the good ol' days of Phase Jump Inhibitors, when they actually did something cool. Anyone remember in Beta when they used to stop any ships from jumping out of the system? That was cool. Infact, I'm gonna make a post on this! :-)
Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
We need an PJI we can bring with us to the party.
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Agreed, as much as I love this game the phase jumping can get irritating.

Personally I'd also like to see ships becoming more vulnerable while initiating a phase jump like dropping shields or something.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top


Personally I'd also like to see ships becoming more vulnerable while initiating a phase jump like dropping shields or something.
End of quote


That's a Very Nice Idea.

And there should be some kind of interdictor ship to prevent enemy fleets from jumping at a certain area that goes beyond the gravity well. Make them run farther if the want to leave.

Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top

If the AI is running from a battle it calculates it cannot win, that is smart. So don't dumb down the AI and make it stupider in order to "force an engagement" as you put it. That would simply create a dumber AI.
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Running from battles you can not win is indeed smart. Running from a battle it can not win resulting in the AI losing all his planets is very very dumb and idiotic AI. Allowing fleets to keep running without losses and allowing the AI to micro his fleets to the level of immediately jumping to safety the second you initiate a phase jump to his position is very very bad programming.

An AI should be a strategic masterpiece, yes, but it is supposed to mimic the behaviour and most importantly the restrictions of real players. That means that in a game that does everything to discourage the players from micromanagement, the AI should be programmed to do only a little micro as well. It's supposed to be equally challenging as real players, not equally annoying.
Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top
What i noticed, and that is much more annoying than the constant phase jumping of the AI, is that they don't build proper defenses, and their fleet structure suxx major
most of the time i player 1on1 versus a normal or hard AI, they built like 2-4 cannons per planet, and their fleet consisted of mostly light frigates + siege frigates + cap ships (as many as possible), while i had a fleet of fewer numbers, with only 2 cap ships, but mixed composition (1/3rd light frigates, some heavys, 1/3rd cruisers, mixed support and offense), and i absolutely mopped the floor with them, with nearly zero losses.
when i cornered them after 2 hours of hunting them down of course.
my point is, ok, its nice to win but its no fun if they don't even offer a challenge. they are just annoying.

and to the constant jumping: PJI + Hangars + repair platform + a few ships = mincemeat AI
as long as you build a proper wall on the frontlines of your empire, they don't stand a chance, and turn back right after jumping in, with losing a third of their forces because of the PJI and the defenses before being able to phase out. or just make 2 fleets and try to pincer attack them, that works as well.

But, i have to admit, they are absolutely stupid by not defending their planets, even if your fleet may be a bit bigger. i managed to defend planets with only half the ships of the attacker, only by bringing support from the adjacent systems throughout the battle, with his numbers decreasing and mine increasing until he was dead or retreating. the AI on the other hand just runs away, letting you demolish their planet as you like, which of course only works because as i wrote above, their defenses suck. if they would build hangars, repair platforms, and stuff, you couldn't just leave a few ships and siege frigates behind killing their planet and chase them with your main fleet.
Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top
Ive never had this problem. First of all orbital guns are kind of bad. For planetary defenses i usually build 2 repairers and as many hangers as i can. Then the last couple tactical slots i put a few guns to protect my other tactical structures. Having a load of strike craft at your planet is a good defense.

Remember, the game is about capturing planets, not killing the enemies fleet.

If in one of the above example, main fleet warps to planet B from planet A to attack the planet, and enemy fleet runs away from planet B to planet A. The secondary fleet at planet A plus the massive number of planetary strike craft should be enough to handle the enemy fleet. Main fleet should continue attacking planet B. perhaps divert a small number of craft from main fleet back to reinforce secondary fleet, but don't just chase after the enemy fleet when its left its planet wide open!

The enemy is not 'running away'. Its trying to draw you away from its planet. And it sounds like its working=P
Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree with the OP.

Although, not entirely, the AI is more annoying than challenging. Here I was, with a friend, massing up a big fleet. Our scouts revealed that they had two gigantic fleets massed up and ready to jump (only, they somehow didn't). They must have had 50 carrier cruisers, 8 capital ships and a billion frigates (each). Even though we knew that we were considerably outnumbered, we decided to 'go for it' and say 'here goes nothing'.

Hoping we could at least severely cripple the enemy fleet, we jumped in. We arrived, a massive battle was fought... but after 10 seconds, both fleets (yes, both) ran away like pansies. We were both baffled as they were numerically superior and had the advantage of already have their bombers and all their ships in position, all antimatter charged up (all our ships used antimatter for the jump) and we had an interval between our fleet's jumps.

YET THEY RAN AWAY.

I was hoping for an epic battle, but instead they jumped like cowards. The AI does this every time, even on hard aggressive. Sure, you might say, that's smart! The AI knows when it can't win a fight and retreats! Even though it leaves an entire colony undefended and behind and is simply pissing me off. I didn't build a fleet to chase rabbits, I built it to fight.

I don't mind them running away if they're vastly outnumbered. No one would be stupid enough to send 5 men and a horse against a fleet of 8 capital ships and 50+ cruisers, but when they don't even bother with equally large, or even larger fleets of their own, I begin to scratch my head and ponder "why the hell would they retreat?"
Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top
"And another thing I noticed is the wormholes are hard to manage battles in correctly. I try to micro and kill capitol ships but if you mis click and don't realize it, your ships will try to jump through the wormhole, so you end up with your fleet split up. I almost want to see a confirmation window on going through the worm hole, or make the area in which it triggers the jump much smaller."

I have this problem with every command. The cursor only activates on an enemy if you are exactly over their ship (it's silhouette in space), so anything irregular shaped that has the slightest bit of drift is a huge pain to target and will often cause me to miss and tell my ships to all walk up and just sit there in the middle of the enemy like sheep. Trying to live off targeting in the Empire tree has it's problems too, several times I have sent ships to the wrong system when, just as I was about to click on an enemy, some unit somewhere far away entered phasespace and kicked all my tree nodes down a notch. That phasespace listing at the top should really go at the bottom.

As for the PJI situation, not having been in beta I can't comment much on how well the old PJI worked, but they sound infinitely more useful than they are now. I think the current ones should be modified so that they keep their current delay, but if three of them are in adjoining systems then they provide full lockdown in those systems. It would certainly make for some interesting chokepoints on multipath maps. And if nothing is done, well we know in time the AI will get better so at least we can mod the PJI and turrets.

And something else no one has mentioned on the hopping issue is that it really hurts the usefulness of antimatter-dependent ships. All the autocast abilities in the world are useless if 2 minutes in by the time you have the AM the battle is already decided.
Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top
They should add a phase delay to all ships but scout ships.
This way you can't just mindlessly jump in somewhere and then jump right back out when you're in trouble.

It doesn't need to be a huge delay, just significant enough for your ships to take/deal a beating when phasing in. It doesn't make sense imho that ships can just insta-phase all the time.

To compensate there could be some research or ability that greatly minimises the delay on later levels.


That or phase jump disrupters should be available earlier on, with stronger ones (completely preventing phase-jump or very large delay) available later on.
Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top
even if there is a PJI (which is tech 4 and thus worthless)
End of quote


LOL
The solution seems to be making phase jump inhibitors that actually work. My question is why they were nerfed down (from the beta) from stopping phase jumping. I mean, there must have been a reason. What were the complaints then about phase inhibitors stopping phase jumping? What was the reason this was nerfed?
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Superweapons would be rather OP if you couldn't get to them... at all.

And another thing I noticed is the wormholes are hard to manage battles in correctly. I try to micro and kill capitol ships but if you mis click and don't realize it, your ships will try to jump through the wormhole, so you end up with your fleet split up. I almost want to see a confirmation window on going through the worm hole, or make the area in which it triggers the jump much smaller
End of quote


Use the empire tree to target their ships.
Reply #36 from Sins Forums Top
I knew something was making me feel the game was a bit shallow and the OP finally made me realize what it was. Theres too much "float right past ya See you later!" going on in this game and it quite ruins the mood.


If it is so effective then why should it be changed? Sounds to me that the AI is doing a good job of keeping you off balance with a smaller fleet than yours. The way to force an engadgement is to ATTACK. Attack something that they will be forced to defend. And if they still don't stand and fight then they will lose that asset and you are one step closer to winning.
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The way to force an engadgement is to ATTACK?????

THIS is where your wrong. Half the time I will bring a fleet to attack their CAPITOL...they have a fleet of the same size...and they RUN AWAY ALLOWING ME TO KILL THEIR CAP??!?!?

How the hell is this "effective" or tactical?

Ya I appreciate the free pwnage they are allowing me to take to their empire when they lose all those wonderful cap benefits but I rather fight nme fleets instead of nme planets that don't shoot back.

This phasic hopscotch has got to go.

---------------------------------

Also does anyone else get the feeling that a 6 player FFA with you and 5 comps is really a 5on1? They all make a bee line for you ignoring eachother...hell even going THROUGH eachothers' planet areas to get to you faster. They do shoot eachother....every once in a long while; but their main goal is to eradicate the non-pc player for some reason. At first I thought maybe because I was currently 'weakest'...odd how if that were true: the 'weakest' took our 2 of the 5 nme fleets attacking my cap at the same time.

I'm wondering if ignoring their first mission is causing some sort of noxious hatred toward your empire. (I almost always ignore early missions if they are to destroy stuff....usually because said stuff is 4 - 5 planets away....)
Reply #37 from Sins Forums Top
No one here really discussed how this effects multi-player, granted there are other threads for that, but I just want to point out that the fleets having no blocking ability makes it impossible to form a front line.
Reply #38 from Sins Forums Top
I hate when cpu ignores the first planet (well fortified) and head straight to next one - less defended (mostly the bombers O_o) they r so quick you cant catch them and when you arrive your planet is ruined
Reply #39 from Sins Forums Top
not to spoil the party but if you make it so the pji STOPS enemy phase jumping then does that affect the superweapon if its all the way in the back of your empire?

you guys have to think this through with all the gameplay elements combined.

if this happens in multiplayer then how the hell can a human player attack a superweapon on the other end the other human empire?
Reply #40 from Sins Forums Top
People complained about the phase lanes, but they were kept in because it would make it more strategic by giving you choke points to use and to keep from living in fear of an attack on any system and having to have a huge defense in every system.

However, it seems pretty obvious to me that it's rather pointless. The AI won't stick around to fight and even in MP games more often than not you can just bypass any defenses and jump deeper into their empire. Apparently all ships are captained by experienced blockade runners.

Without the ability to truly create front lines for either side, this will continue to go on. There is no strategy to this. I never had this problem really vs the AI in Beta 3 so why did this have to get changed? Phase lanes are there to keep enemy fleets from, say, jumping directly to your capital planet and wiping it out before you have any response. The further from the front lines a planet is, the safer it should be.

This would be my solution. If you have a fleet at an enemy owned planet, you can NOT jump to the enemy's next planet until you've taken care of it. Scout frigates would be the only exception to this. However, if you're at an enemy controlled planet, jumping back to escape should have a reasonably bigger delay, PJI or not.

As far as I can tell, the only type of people that would be against this is those who actually use this strategy themselves in MP / skirmish games.
Reply #41 from Sins Forums Top

if this happens in multiplayer then how the hell can a human player attack a superweapon on the other end the other human empire?
End of quote


I haven't played enough to get to superweapons in this game, but when it came to other RTS style games, if you weren't able to get through their defenses, then you simply build your own superweapon and use it on them.
Reply #42 from Sins Forums Top
There has been a lot of good discussion in this thread. I really do believe there is an issue here that needs to be looked at seriously by Ironclad.

I remember in an interview that the developers from Ironclad said they put in the phase lanes so that you couldn't bypass defenses and just jump straight to the inner planets and destroy them. Unfortunately, this is the effect we are getting from fleets being able to bypass an entire fleet/defenses and continue forward. Sure, they will take damage because your bombers/frigates/etc are chasing them, but in the long run if they have enough siege frigates they will get to the inner planets and take them out. Most of us probably re-enforce our main outer planets as well as a few planets towards the home planet, but not always every single planet in your empire gets the emergency upgrade. I just don't think this is how the people at Ironclad envisioned their game.

On the topic of the phase jump hopscotch, I think the comments about the micro it takes to defeat an enemy fleet when it is pre-determined to phase before you get there, as well as phase at any time and run, is not a desired effect. The devs said we shouldn't have to micro at all. However, if we don't micro these phase jumping ships we will be sorely upset when we lose our planets.

There have been some good suggestions by a few people in here on how to fix these issues, and I really think that if the devs take a step back and play a few games they will notice the same things we notice. We shouldn't have to play leapfrog the entire game no matter the size of your forces. The ai simply will not fight you, unless you have 3 frigates vs and entire fleet. And of course you've got the FFA computers all teaming up against you ever single time as well, which is another problem mentioned.

I have faith the devs can fix this or at least comment on it and let us know that they are looking into it and will make a decision on whether to change it. It seems like Ironclad has been listening to their supporters.

Anyone know how we can get them to take a closer look at this thread? Maybe we need to send emails to them? I think these issues really detract from the overall grand gameplay that is supposed to occur.
Reply #43 from Sins Forums Top
On the subject of fleets going straight past a defensive fleet and striking deeper within the empire... I'd just like to point out that this is one of the biggest (theoretical) problems with a defensive doctrine in space combat. Space is HUGE and ships move FAST. It isn't feasible in real life to build a meaningful defensive network that could cover a planet, not to mention a whole system, so why should it work out in a simulation?

I think the best decision here is to have defenses established several worlds deep into your empire so that the planets can hold out for a defensive fleet to come and rescue them.

To be fair, this isn't my theory, it's from Ender's Game. Bugger the Buggers and such.

As for the enemies constantly retreating... yeah it's pretty irritating, but you have to admit that its damn good strategy in general. I haven't noticed them running away quite as much when it came to actually defending a world, they usually seem to fight it out in my experience. What difficulty computers are you guys playing with that this is happening?
Reply #44 from Sins Forums Top

On the subject of fleets going straight past a defensive fleet and striking deeper within the empire... I'd just like to point out that this is one of the biggest (theoretical) problems with a defensive doctrine in space combat. Space is HUGE and ships move FAST. It isn't feasible in real life to build a meaningful defensive network that could cover a planet, not to mention a whole system, so why should it work out in a simulation?

I think the best decision here is to have defenses established several worlds deep into your empire so that the planets can hold out for a defensive fleet to come and rescue them.

To be fair, this isn't my theory, it's from Ender's Game. Bugger the Buggers and such.

As for the enemies constantly retreating... yeah it's pretty irritating, but you have to admit that its damn good strategy in general. I haven't noticed them running away quite as much when it came to actually defending a world, they usually seem to fight it out in my experience. What difficulty computers are you guys playing with that this is happening?
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As far as realism goes, yeah, it'd be hard to defend in space given the openness. However this game is far from a simulation, thats why there are phase lanes. They knew that if it was just purely open it would be very frustrating and almost impossible to defend anything.

As for the computer retreating being a good strategy I just can't agree with that. I play normal/hard computers and they will run away, go to my world I jumped from where Ihave a second fleet, then I will destroy the planet they left and continue on while they get beat by my 2nd fleet because the computer doesn't know how to put together a good fleet to begin with. Really not a good strategy at all.
Reply #45 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with the OP. There are enough musical chair RTS out there already. Do us a favor SD/IC and put back in real phase disruptors.
Reply #46 from Sins Forums Top
Actually, it sounds like they need to fix the AI which seems to prioritize withdrawing over defending its capital.

Look, I'm sure you feel screwed out of your legitimate epic end-battle and cinema but lets not break the game because of a simple AI glitch.

Phase jumping is a core component of the game. If you want it changed, you should probably go play Universe at War Earth Assault or some other idiotic RTT.
Reply #47 from Sins Forums Top
Actually, the phase jumping breaks the game.
I think is is simply not fun to have to chase an enemy fleet all over the place.
Especially when you have phase inhibitors installed. I really see no effect from these structures.
I have spent the better part of an hour chasing a cowardly enemy fleet. How is this fun?
Reply #48 from Sins Forums Top

I have spent the better part of an hour chasing a cowardly enemy fleet. How is this fun?
End of quote



A better question would be: Why? I've asked this at least 5 times so far and nobody really has bothered to answer it. If they run, you should sack their worlds. Yeah, it's anticlimactic, but that's broken AI, not a serious issue with phase jumping.


Especially when you have phase inhibitors installed. I really see no effect from these structures.
End of quote


Assuming that the enemy fleet immediately realizes "Oh Crap" as soon as they enter my system with a phase inhibitor appropriately placed I can sink at least one enemy capital ship before they jump away with a full complement of 9 bomber wings and 3 fighter wings on Advent, 10 and 2 on Vasari/TEC.

I couldn't see the effect on scouts at first, but then I marvelled at how long it took someone to phase jump out of my system. Maybe you'd notice the difference if you spent your time playing the game instead of being histrionic on the forum.
Reply #49 from Sins Forums Top
I like the interdictor option. Make them a cap ship and limit the amount you can have. That way people have no choice but to strategically place them. Do they go offense? or defense?...how many systems lead into your core? By limiting the number of interdictors you prevent the insane turtling (or at least lmit it somewhat). said interdictors should also have a limited range (not system wide). That way you couldnt just park them at the rear of your defenses of doom.
Reply #50 from Sins Forums Top


I have spent the better part of an hour chasing a cowardly enemy fleet. How is this fun?



A better question would be: Why? I've asked this at least 5 times so far and nobody really has bothered to answer it. If they run, you should sack their worlds. Yeah, it's anticlimactic, but that's broken AI, not a serious issue with phase jumping.


Especially when you have phase inhibitors installed. I really see no effect from these structures.


Assuming that the enemy fleet immediately realizes "Oh Crap" as soon as they enter my system with a phase inhibitor appropriately placed I can sink at least one enemy capital ship before they jump away with a full complement of 9 bomber wings and 3 fighter wings on Advent, 10 and 2 on Vasari/TEC.

I couldn't see the effect on scouts at first, but then I marvelled at how long it took someone to phase jump out of my system. Maybe you'd notice the difference if you spent your time playing the game instead of being histrionic on the forum.
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you must be playing a different game than me. i notice very little impact of the pji structures.