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Shield Mitigation Subsidizes and Promotes Focus Firing

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Shield Mitigation Subsidizes and Promotes Focus Firing

from Sins Forums
I don't know what the idea with shield mitigation is, but its current effect is not to limit the benefits of focus firing, but to insure that focus firing is the most viable solution in most cases.

Hypothesis: Shield mitigation mechanics reward focus firing in most scenarios.

I think we all know why focus firing, on its own, makes better tactical sense than ship-vs.-ship one on one firing: Reduce the DPS of the opponent faster to tilt the scales of the battle as soon as possible.

Examples:

10 LRM vs. 10 LRM:

If both sides spread fire evenly, one side will win, barely, depending on who got the first shots off, etc.. Each ship whittles down its opposite # till death, then helps out another if there's time, which in this case there won't be. If one side focus fires, they'll take down 1 LRM at a time, and weaken the opposing force significantly before any of their number are threatened. If they also retreat weakened ships they'll improve the numbers even more. EG, if LRMs still targeted, with enough health left to jump out, jump out, the rest of the mob can continue working on the survivers of the spread-focus fleet who will have to retarget significantly healthier ships in what is clearly a suicide by stupidity.

Enter Shield Mitigation.

So, shield mitigation means that as more damage is poured into a target, less of that damage 'gets through'. Significantly, all damage triggers some shield mitigation, and shield mitigation has a 'cap'. There is a certain point beyond which adding damage just helps kill off the maxed-out mitigating target.

If you spread-focus fire, you trigger mitigation on all the target ships to some degree. There is DPS loss for all attackers. If, instead, you focus-fire, there is DPS loss to a ceratin point, but any attacker adding DPS above the mitigation saturation point is doing non-mitigation-increasing damage. Sure, its only 43% or so of 'full damage', but you are still tipping the scales of the overall battle by removing their DPS (by removing ships, eh.).

It would take a very highly curved shield mitigation mechanic to offset the rewards of focus firing.

Focus Firing:

Only one ship's hull repair, shield regen dealt with.
Lower enemy fleet DPS in the only way possible: by removing ships.
Actually have and use target prioritization, rather than let some 'balancing' mechanic dictate targets.
Least amount of shield mitigation triggered: In all but tiny engagements of 3 or 4 ships, focus firing will trigger the least amount of overall damage reduction because the battle will be shorter and will speed up as it becomes unbalanced in favor of the superior focus-fire team.

Spread Firing:

Looks cool.
Gets you killed.
Triggers the self-repair of the maximum # of targets.
Puts a pail of DPS in the deepest well of shield mitigation: The whole enemy fleet.

......

If Shield Mitigation is linear, it certainly promotes focus firing. Even if its curved, it likely promotes focus firing more often than not.

If it is linear: Each DPS added to a target adds X percent of mitigation increase. I think it works this way now.

If it is curved: Initial DPS add very little to mitigation. The larger the DPS, the faster the increase in mitigation. Ideally, to convince people not to focus fire, mitigation should be Zero with the average DPS load: One average ship shooting at you does nothing. Two average ships should do only ~1.5x damage (25% mitigation). Three, 1.7x (40%). Four, 2.0x (50%). Five, 2.2x, etc.. So that the point of limited returns is reached quickly and decisively. Most importantly though, the initial load should have no mitigation at all. Otherwise you are clearly rewarding people to pour damage into already-maxed out targets.

A linear arrangement cannot inhibit focus firing, and because it starts non-zero and has a cap/saturation point, is often a clear incentive to focus fire whenever possible. It isn't a disincentive because no matter where you put your DPS, in a linear system you will get a mitigation effect, so it might as well be into a focus-fire target. Since this starts at 15%! it is even more clear that spreading fire is nonsensical.

......

What I don't like about mitigation (besides being an incentive to focus fire (who needs an incentive?)) is that it seems like managed economics, like a forced disincentive against being tactically astute. Why? Would you design a football game that likewise 'encouraged' only single tackles? It just rubs against the whole mechanic of combat. Its also counter-intuitive. You'd think a ship would be able to 'mitigate' against a light load better than against a heavy load / multiple source. Maybe single ships shouldn't even be able to damage each other? Rather than add a counter-intuitive managed dis-incentive bandaid to the 'problem' (why is it a problem again?) of focus firing, why not add positive incentives to multiple attack formats?

Maybe AoE effects that don't stack, so ships are encouraged to spread out (like crusader, but unstackable). Or more ship-vs-ship benefits, like an ability to mini-animosity a multi-turret ship: focus the flak's shots on you, rather than your fighters. Or shots that take a long time to execute, but do hella damage. Somewhat like the assailant's range ability. These things create positive incentives to diversify away from simple blob focus-firing. Shield Mitigation doesn't. And even if it were curved to be effective, this would be a bad thing. How would you micromanage 50 ships anyways? The interface has to be there, or the AI, and the incentive has to be there. Taking away advantages without incentives, mechanics, and a spread-fire interface to occur to players as alternate strategies makes mitigation seem like a cheap shot. I'm glad it doesn't really work as it looks on the tin.


strategy
20,725 views 41 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
Mitigation increases by 1% for every 10 damage being taken by a ship at a particular time. I don't know the decay rate, but it obviously can't match the pace at which ships can deal raw damage. This way, mitigation will inevitably reach it's cap, making spread fire pointless since you'll be fighting mitigation and regeneration at the same time, and repair auras like those from Repair Platforms and the Skirantra Carrier will become more effective.1.25% is the decay rate per second, basically meaning 12.5 dps and under doesnt increase mitigation (well it will jump up some times to ~17, but then decay back down to ~15).
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So basically you can have one LRM firing at a target without sending mitigation up. That's kind of useless, since regen and repair will take a big chunk off of that little bit of damage. Anything higher will result in mitigation eventually climbing up and eventually hitting the cap anyway, so might as well make it happen sooner rather than later with a focus fire barrage and just kill the damn ship. Problem solved.

Of course, damage types are definitely more important. Different groups of ships within a fleet should all have different focus-fire targets depending on their attack type vs. the target's defense type, with queued targets to avoid overkill.
Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
Astax: Damage types are still more important. You dont want all ships targeting one, instead its better to have anti-light target light ships, anti medium target medium ships and so forth.
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Of course. I should have mentioned this, but thought it would be assumed. In a mixed fleet you have several focus-fire targets, if the enemy also has a mixed fleet.

Sideshow: It looks to me that the AI will automatically do an economical focus-fire with a fleet of LRMs - and from my experience it has felt more efficient than manualy targetting. Manually chaining targets guarantees you get the order you want, but you generally waste a ton of missiles to overkill, whereas the AI seems to take into account target hitpoints and only fire at it sufficient ammo to kill; it'll then have any ships which would be firing excess missiles target something else for that volley. Or at least, this is what I think I've observed. Certainly, I manage my LRMs by parking them just within missile range of enemy ships, and let them choose where to fire.
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Good point Sideshow. Its quite difficult to anticipate when to turn the damage hose to the next target with slow weapons like missiles. And another thing is the time spent turning to face new targets. In a real furball focus fire may not even be possible with slow ships as they tend to move a little unpredictably.

I like the AI's use of Focus Fire sometimes, but generally try to micro. Three improvements would make this so much better:

1. AI reprioritize to take out newly jumped in ships, if better damage type match.

2. AI prioritize damaged ships (of decent damage type) in range rather than 'fresh' ships.

3. Auto-retreat wounded ships in the blob, if it looks like survival is possible.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top
Certainly, I manage my LRMs by parking them just within missile range of enemy ships, and let them choose where to fire.
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That is most likely because of a slightly different priority in LRM management. When you're using LRMs, you are, more likely than not, more interested in keeping the LRMs firing out of range of the enemy than you are at optimizing the amount of pain they dish out: After all, it doesn't matter how fast you kill them if they can't kill you. If you ordered a manual attack, the LRMs would all bunch up in a semi-arc around that target, and this would bring them into range of enemy fire. Letting them just shoot whoever they feel like will tend to cause them to shoot the first thing they see, and thus stop them from ringing.

Another thing to note in target selection is sometimes you're not concerned with the efficiency with which the battle is conducted. Sometimes you just want BLOOD. A damaged enemy that has turned and started running may not be posing any threat to your fleet anymore, but I WANT TO SEE BLOOD! I have often ordered my fleet to simply overrun the enemy fleet, ignoring actively firing ships to chase down fleeing enemies. This is probably more common against the AI, since it's blatantly chickenshit, and practically never actually threatens you even in superior force, but I'm sure it's not unlikely that some targets are worth more DEAD than your own ships are alive.
Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top
Sorry, kind of a double post. I forgot that I'd replied to this before!
Damage types are still more important. You dont want all ships targeting one, instead its better to have anti-light target light ships, anti medium target medium ships and so forth.
End of quote

I think you're missing the point Astax. We're not talking about force-firing against 'wrong type' targets, but amongst appropriate targets, either in a mixed fleet, or a 'spam' fleet of 1 or 2 types.

10 LRM --> focus fire / spread fire against Light Frigs
10 Flak --> focus fire / spread fire against LRMs
10 Light Frigs --> focus fire / spread fire against Flaks

Damage type and Force-firing on the wrong type of targets is a different discussion.
Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top
Am noticing more about AI targetting that I'm not liking so much: It'll target ships which are out of range, while there are ships in range. It does this even when your ships can't move due to abilities.

Which brings me on to: can't we have 1-click ability activation for fleets? The toggle between Move-and-fire and Stuck-and-fire-better for Assailants is not fun (and it's autocasting is terrible). I'm used to tab-f-tab-f-tab-f... for Eldar in DoW, but there you are unlikely to have more than 10 squads. Doing tab-q-tab-q-tab-q... for 30 Assailants is a pain the arse.
Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top
Normally i would agree with the OP (on the fact that mitigation is not enough to make FF useless) but after losing a battle where i was using FF and my opponent was not, with similar fleets, i must say it's not always the best solution. Depends on armor/weapon bonus of the ships involved. Sometimes you don't want to focus on one target, so either let them autoattack or manually focus multiple targets is a better solution.
Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top
If shield mitigation's purpose is to reduce the incentive in focus firing, it's not doing a very good job (as the OP pointed out). A better incentive to not focus fire might be, say, if ships that were damaged a certain amount might temporarily lose engines, weapons, etc. You'd be encouraged to fire at more ships in the hope of triggering more critical failures. The fact that ships are fully functional until their last hitpoint is one factor that promotes FF. Put in some sort of critical hit system (which the game has the graphics for, even!), and players would be encouraged to fire at more targets than just the current FF target.

Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top
A good idea "thecaptain_ps". Its a positive incentive, its realistic, and it would reward tactics other than FF. Verra cool.
Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top
I'd just like to state a few things to FF. Late game strategies make FF pretty ineffective. I've love you to FF on my TEC Battle ship, I'll turn off the guass gun keep the shield running while I have the Dunov's Regen the shields and thus you are suddenly screwed. by the time you actually kill it... (by then you probably won't) I'll ruined most of your fleet. Sure your caps are still pretty safe and I may lose my battleship in the end but you'll still have lost more ships.

So, one's going to say oh well I'll start taking out your support ships... hmm let me think for a sec oh lets move those back so you have to run though my fleet to get them and you'll expose your LRMs and carriers fresh for the taking. Not to mention those ships will have a bit of time where they'll be out of range. So Effectively during late game tactics, you don't actively target anything with the Lrms let them do their splash damage, with the Kodiaks you could have focus fire on the heavy assault cruisers. the key though is to hold your ground and make the Opposition pull away, If you can Identify the Flag ship of a Fleet then Focus Fire the hell out of it, if that ship retreats the entire fleet will follow suit!
Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top
I'd just like to state a few things to FF. Late game strategies make FF pretty ineffective. I've love you to FF on my TEC Battle ship, I'll turn off the guass gun keep the shield running while I have the Dunov's Regen the shields and thus you are suddenly screwed. by the time you actually kill it... (by then you probably won't) I'll ruined most of your fleet. Sure your caps are still pretty safe and I may lose my battleship in the end but you'll still have lost more ships. So, one's going to say oh well I'll start taking out your support ships... hmm let me think for a sec oh lets move those back so you have to run though my fleet to get them and you'll expose your LRMs and carriers fresh for the taking.
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So, if a player has no brain and no tactics, FF isn't going to save them?

Where is the roll eyes button?

The point isn't that FF works no matter how you use it. Its that its superior to spread fire, multiple-group FF, in most situations. Do you dispute that?

Do you dispute that Shield Mitigation acts to polarize the practice of FF such that it becomes even more important to use it wherever feasible?

I like your second paragraph, btw. Perhaps a thread on how to shape a fleet properly is in order?
Reply #36 from Sins Forums Top
If shield mitigation's purpose is to reduce the incentive in focus firing, it's not doing a very good job (as the OP pointed out). A better incentive to not focus fire might be, say, if ships that were damaged a certain amount might temporarily lose engines, weapons, etc. You'd be encouraged to fire at more ships in the hope of triggering more critical failures. The fact that ships are fully functional until their last hitpoint is one factor that promotes FF. Put in some sort of critical hit system (which the game has the graphics for, even!), and players would be encouraged to fire at more targets than just the current FF target.
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Another idea in the same vein: you could re work the game a bit so that the DPS, speed, and maneuverability of a ship steadily degrades as it takes hull damage. A heavily damaged ship would, of course, not be as big of a threat as an undamaged one. Perhaps below a certain threshold the ship becomes crippled, where it will have no weapons, no shield regeneration, and only minimal movement ability.

I don't have a problem with the way things are now, to be honest, but this would be an interesting thing to try out.
Reply #37 from Sins Forums Top
Another idea in the same vein: you could re work the game a bit so that the DPS, speed, and maneuverability of a ship steadily degrades as it takes hull damage. A heavily damaged ship would, of course, not be as big of a threat as an undamaged one. Perhaps below a certain threshold the ship becomes crippled, where it will have no weapons, no shield regeneration, and only minimal movement ability.I don't have a problem with the way things are now, to be honest, but this would be an interesting thing to try out.
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This morning I looked through all of the buff files and found a number of statements and triggers that will allow a critical hit system.

The gist: Each ship, after taking a certain amount of hull damage, has a chance to throw any number of nasty critical effects. Some effects will have a low probability, and some might only trigger after the ship has taken a certain level of damage. This way a ship can lose thrusters, engines, weapons, shields, or even go up in a spectacular magazine strike.

This will go into the mod I'm working on. Since to do it, I have to add a new passive ability to each ship, ships won't have four abilities. This means I doubt I can make a vanilla only version, sadly.
Reply #38 from Sins Forums Top
They just need to

a) Differentiate the damage threshold for SM gain. You should need more DPS to raise the mitigation on a HC than on, say, a scout

b) Increase the threshold in general. It's way too easy to raise mitigation to cap.
Reply #39 from Sins Forums Top
You can find the shield mitigation data in each player file:

TEC:
shieldData
shieldAbsorbGrowthPerDamage 0.005
shieldAbsorbDecayRate 0.0125
shieldAbsorbBaseMin 0.0
shieldColor ffFFC705


So, you might make shieldAbsorbGrowthPerDamage 0.001, and mitigation would take 5 times longer to kick in...

Sadly I doubt you can differentiate between different units.. each point causes an increase in mitigation whatever the unit.
Reply #40 from Sins Forums Top
Shield Mitigation should raise when the number of weapons firing to the ship also raises, not when the damage recieved is higher.
Reply #41 from Sins Forums Top
If you lower the mitigation growth, then some of the smaller ships will never cap out on mitigation! The lowly Disciple vessels already lose a good chunk of their low HPs before they max out. You'd be better off increasing the decay rate, so that you can put just a bit more DPS on a ship before it starts maxing mitigation.