Player based Fleet Groups

[Criss]

So I can't believe I hadn't though of this before. This may end up being a part of the future AI fleet updates but I have heard nothing specifically on this suggestions so I thought it was important to bring it up.

One of the biggest issues I see with fleet combat is how predictable it is. Right now people bring lots of guns to a fight. Big ships, little ships. Doesn't matter. It's the only thing on the field. Hardly have I seen dedicated shield repairer ships or tackle or any support craft brought into fights. Even if I was engaged in a fight with shield logistics ship next to me, I wouldn't even know if they were really being effective.

I think part of that mentality, the problem with diversifying ships with these specific roles is because we have no clue as to who needs shields and who doesn't. Does a specific fighter need to be tackled? How do we target a specific ship for power drain? There is a lack of clear coordination in-game and I believe this is why we see so few of these ship types.

What I am asking for is a way to make player operated fleets. Basically a party system. Starmade can certainly be played with the role-based mentality. I think it might even be necessary. In the future this can even include extensions into the AI fleet control as well.

Essentially a player can create a party (fleet). The shields, and hull health (when its implemented) can be displayed similar to MMO style displays. You should be able to create wings to a fleet. No more than 5 people per wing, to keep it clean and uncluttered. This way you can see the health and shields of your teammates on screen in a fight.

Since there are also some unbound keys, I think a few of them could be set up for this purpose. Hitting "this key" will alert your friends that you need shield repairs. Hitting "this other key" would indicate a target that needs its power drained or needs to be tackled. I won't bother looking through which keys are free currently.

So this is just a random thing I though up. I think it would be pretty nice to have an official fleet formation instead of just flying in unison with your friends. I think this could bring a lot to combat. Again, I have not heard anything about a party system at all. I know there is already a fleet menu on the AI screen but I think it was solely put there for the AI systems.

 

[Comr4de]

Well for starters, those ships aren't worth their weight at all. Since shield supply beams trigger the "under fire" debuff for shields theyre pretty useless as a support ship.


The most useful "specialized" designs I've seen are pushpulse tacklers. And THOSE are useless because the enemy can just FTL a sector away and shoot em before it gets close again.

It's more effective to replace those support ships with combat ships. If support systems were more, well, useful perhaps they'd be used. Like, if there was a threshold for shield supply beams to reset the under fire debuff on the target that'd be neat. Or they can just change the shield supply beam to not trigger the debuff.

Also I use teamspeak to coordinate fleet actions because its easier.
[DOUBLEPOST=1421892006,1421891852][/DOUBLEPOST]They = Calbiri since hes in charge of the config balance or whatever. Or maybe its an engine change. Who knows.

 

[Criss]

Well for starters, those ships aren't worth their weight at all. Since shield supply beams trigger the "under fire" debuff for shields theyre pretty useless as a support ship.


The most useful "specialized" designs I've seen are pushpulse tacklers. And THOSE are useless because the enemy can just FTL a sector away and shoot em before it gets close again.

It's more effective to replace those support ships with combat ships. If support systems were more, well, useful perhaps they'd be used. Like, if there was a threshold for shield supply beams to reset the under fire debuff on the target that'd be neat. Or they can just change the shield supply beam to not trigger the debuff.

Also I use teamspeak to coordinate fleet actions because its easier.
[DOUBLEPOST=1421892006,1421891852][/DOUBLEPOST]They = Calbiri since hes in charge of the config balance or whatever. Or maybe its an engine change. Who knows.

I would assume issues like the things you've stated would be fixed by the time this game is finished. I highly doubt these systems would have such major flaws in the end. We also shouldn't opt of a feature simply because an outside program can fix it. Most games have a chat system. Most games have a party system. Every game has display settings. I shouldn't be forced to use skype, teamspeak or tweak my monitor settings for things the game could easily fix with its own features. After the game reaches that point, then it can be personal preference.

 

[DMTKenna]

it would be epic if we had some sort of advanced sensors block that let you zoom out to sensor mode like in the homeworld games, and if the fleet/wing displays were done like the tree on the side screen on sins of a solar empire

 

[Comr4de]

We also shouldn't opt of a feature simply because an outside program can fix it. Most games have a chat system. Most games have a party system. Every game has display settings. I shouldn't be forced to use skype, teamspeak or tweak my monitor settings for things the game could easily fix with its own features. After the game reaches that point, then it can be personal preference.

chill dude I was just stating what I use

I'm also not sure where display settings came into this but that's just me
[DOUBLEPOST=1421896573,1421896430][/DOUBLEPOST]Also why is this in site support

 

[CyberTao]

Yeah, this should be in suggestions, probably justclicked the wrong tab or something.

Regardless, I'm gonna take the time to say that I think this is dumb. I don't really know which games you are eluding to (I never played Eve, so dunno what it's like there), but I don't see how a traditional "Party" system would work in Starmade.

Spoiler: 1) Aggro

Parties in most MMOs work because the players make use of the mob's Aggression counter. The big tank type tends to draw in the most damage, with little given to the support, keeping them safe. That doesn't work in a game where anyone can target anyone, if the enemy found out there was a "support" type ship supplying shields, that would be the logical prime target. Even in PvP in other games, allies could and would guard their allies, since no one would really survive running into the middle of everyone (in Melee focused games), or getting close enough to hit (in Range focused games). Starmade has a shit ton of range, and the only cover is your allies. Add in FTL to warp behind, and suddenly that little support ship is picked off.
Mind ya, they would probably have to study up on who they were fighting, or have good eyes to find the support, but still, it doesn't seem like it'll work as intended. Even if you scripted AI to target the "tanks" and "dps" ships, it'd probably end up feeling cheap and easily exploitable.

Spoiler: 2) Battles

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I don't think I've seen any support-type ships on the front lines in sci-fi (not that I know much of that, but still). Support structures seem more prevalent really, a shipyard or outpost for repairs and maybe a support type ship that stays away until battle is over, since it's probably be an easy target. Unless it's a multi-purpose ship

Spoiler: 3) Why?

Why do we need a special "party" display to see allied HP (when we get it), Shields and power? We get those from selecting a ship already (or in the Navigation menu). Maybe we could get more/better Nav filtering options. You said maybe set up buttons to announce things to your 'party'? Why not use them as hot-keys of sorts, I've seen a few games that had quick custom messaging (ex, pressing F1 makes you say "Hello there!" In chat). Doing something like that lets everyone quickly state their status, and Support players can quickly check the Nav screen if they want to be preemptive with their help.

I dunno, I probably just rambled and ranted a lot, but this notion sounds really dumb to me, and I am a support player. And support means more than just supplying shields and power (If your ship designs really needed a support ship for power, you fucked up your design, or they're better off running). I actually enjoy playing as priest/heal+buff types with a party, and that in Starmade comes with Logistics mainly. Hell, even passing on alerts and messages, organizing fleets, refitting ships, mining, outpost building, trade runs, taxing players to their new ships, that all counts as support in Starmade. It's not all battle, and honestly trying to cram "traditional" support into the battles would just make them grindier really.

Battle support will come as Long ranged ships, or co-pilots on multi-purpose ships; an extra player that will not have to worry about flying at all, can lock missiles, assess fleet strength and utilize the various "support" like functions that may be useful in combat, like a Power supply turret to help damaged ships jump out, shield supply beams (turrets or ship mounted) to reinforce front line ships. We already have the information present for support play, it just needs to be clearer (with chat shortcut buttons). We have the methods of support as well, it just needs to be flushed out as the game progresses.

I honestly don't think we need any fancy-schmancy Party system and Display, we already have it. You're basically asking to take a limitless concept and impose limits on it, because a party system could never do what players could do on their own.

But yeah, that was my semi-angry rant about what parties do in normal games, how it doesn't apply to Starmade, and how it is just dumb. I need to sleep now.

 

[Mariux]

I like the idea. Curretly ship battles are really, really basic. This, along with thruster changes, should make them a lot more interesting.

 

[Criss]

chill dude I was just stating what I use

I'm also not sure where display settings came into this but that's just me
[DOUBLEPOST=1421896573,1421896430][/DOUBLEPOST]Also why is this in site support

I was making a comparison so you could better understand. Not sure how you missed it. But basically, we shouldn't opt out of a feature just to force the player to use a separate program. The game comes with a chat system instead of forcing us to use skype or something else. Well coordination in the game sucks between "fleets". I figure a legitimate group system could be used here. You seemed to understand the first two examples I gave.

Also no I have no idea why this is in support. I guess I scrolled down too far. I was looking for suggestions.
[DOUBLEPOST=1421918209][/DOUBLEPOST]

Parties in most MMOs work because the players make use of the mob's Aggression counter... That doesn't work in a game where anyone can target anyone, if the enemy found out there was a "support" type ship supplying shields, that would be the logical prime target.

I was never talking with PVE in mind. AI shouldn't really be thinking this way because we likely won't need to have a system specifically for fighting them. They will never be as good as a player, I don't ever think they will be. If you want to fight an AI in an ill-equipped ship, that is your own fault.

I should also point out, that regardless of the game, when it comes to PVP, the player knows easily which target should be taken out first. In EVE its the logistics. In Wow its the Healer. In Evolve its the medic. In Halo it's the sniper thats picking off your team cositently. Not sure about you, but I seem perfectly capable of choosing who I need to target to make the biggest impact.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I don't think I've seen any support-type ships on the front lines in sci-fi (not that I know much of that, but still).

Depends on the series. EVE seems to handle support pretty nicely, as do most games. Not sure why we should limit ourselves by thinking they have no purpose on the battlefield.

Why do we need a special "party" display to see allied HP (when we get it), Shields and power? We get those from selecting a ship already (or in the Navigation menu).

You would honestly rather attempt to target someone, or scroll through a wall of targets in order to read tiny text that displays shields? That is completely counter intuitive. I want that information easily. Play Elite dangerous, play star citizen, play EVE. Those games do not force you to search for that information. Its easily readable in a hud element.

support means more than just supplying shields and power... trying to cram "traditional" support into the battles would just make them grindier really... we already have it... a party system could never do what players could do on their own.

What I said was just an example. Of course there are more roles.

How does it make it grindier. You didn't really explain that. It also does not really apply to PVP. If this game gets to a point where things are nicely balanced, then it will be hard to prioritize a target. It will be difficult to just go after the logi ship. Maybe in doing so you expose yourself to the full barrage of the enemy. Thats the hope anyway. We don't want that grind. I doubt the devs wouldn't strive to reach a nice balance.

I stated this above, but the alternative to reading what should be easily accessed infromation is trying to target the correct entity in combat or scrolling through the list from the Nav menu. That's a pain and I would never want to do that in any game. Even if you consider it a nice system, would it be too much to ask for something easier.

Not sure how simply having this information displayed on screen takes anything away from gameplay. I'm not forcing roles on people. I just want to easily read information that I need. I want fleets to be organized. I think that's perfectly sound to ask for and I think twice now people misinterpreted what I meant when I started talking about an MMO style party system. I was talking about the display solely, not shoving hard-coded roles down our throats. I would not want to play that.

 

[DukeofRealms]

Moved.

 

[Criss]

Moved.

Thanks. Sorry about that!

 

[CyberTao]

Lets expand on the ideas of "Support" first, the only 3 I can think of is Shield supply, Power supply, and Astrotech after the HP system.
Shield support ships - I'll be honest and say I do not expect this to be useful at all. Ships are balanced so that a large ship can't quadruple it's shields using docked shield reactors, meaning they need multiple, or a big one if it's going to have any effect. So on the battlefield, you'd need a support ship about the size of the average fleet ship's shielding array. A ship that size might as well be a combat ship, since it will prove more useful (unless you were fighting a single large enemy).
Power support ships - These just reek of bad design for the most part, if a ship can not support it's own weapons and systems, then it really should not have been put into battle. Power supply does have some uses in late battle, when a ship needs to jump away, or could work as a scan ship in the midst, but that could easily be functions given to a ship already in the fleet.
Astrotech support - This reeks worse of grindy battles. Assuming this is even possible (I don't know how the shipyards and HP system will work), you're left with something that could potentially nullify block damage if built large enough, causing battles to drag on for far longer until one side loses their Healing ship. If anything, I hope this is slow enough that it can be used between battles, but doesn't sound like a very fun addition to fleet PvP. Who knows, maybe Astrotech will end up a Capital ship system? It's potentially powerful enough.

Not entirely sure how Power or Shield supply will change to better fleet support, maybe ratio/power adjustments.

Let's talk about range next, the smallest range I saw in the configs was .5*sector range, which defaults to 5km I think? That's assuming everyone was using "close ranged" weapons, in which you would see it's hard to see what enemy is doing what. At longer ranges, you're just working off of nav icons really, you can't see the support ships. This is where Astrotechs make battles grindy, since you can not see them. They can make the battle simply longer, or just impossible, which would just slow down the pace of the game. It just doesn't sound like fun when I say it like this, maybe you could reword it into your understanding (no sarcasm) because I cannot see the fun in that.

And the point about the display is that is unneeded and limited. I've seen 3 different fleet involvements in my time, all of which had more then 5 people present, and that will only grow as the game progresses and the community gets bigger. What'll happen is you'll get multiple "parties" side by side, still having to ask each others' status. On the small scale or short term, it'd be fine, but not on the scale most of hope for (I think).
Honestly, selecting ships with F is a valid way to do it though, since a support ship is not front line, it will be behind and could easily turn, select and flip between them. Even quick chat commands like "I'm under fire" "Shields half" would be better than a list of Health bars, since a player would still have to look at their screen and be aware of what is happening, it would just be an extra thing to check, and ultimately prove redundant.

Really though, better window design and Nav filtering would be great. Pull the navigation screen to the side and set it to only show faction ships (no turret/docked). Suddenly you have a 'party list'. Switch it to enemy and suddenly you can see what is inbound. Plus, it would only affect those that wanted to see it, front line DPS ships don't need to pay no mind to it, just listen for orders. Movable, resizable, and better filtering on the Nav screen would be so much more useful then a simple list, even more useful if you could open 2, one for allies and one to track enemies (sorted by distance = Alerted when a new ship jumps in for example).

Support 'ships' are probably far less likely than support 'players'. Multipurpose ships and co-pilot functionality would benefit a fleet more then a few ships added on (easy extra targets if found).

 

[Starlight Walker]

If you recall the "Battle Over Coruscant" from episode 3 of starwars, then you will know a few things about how they fight, like how they use turrets and buzzdriods to take care of smaller ships, But the most interesting thing is how the tracking missiles work, particularity how the small ships avoided them, Both of them managed to get the missiles to hit different things(each-other, buzzdriods) This would be crucial in having any sort of small ships, you could even have a system to jettison scrap and tracking missiles would hit them, The bigger the ship, the more scrap you would have to eject for the missiles to hit them

Another thing that is interesting is how they get into the giant ship, they shoot the projector of the shield system for a docking bay door, and by only shooting a small part of it, caused the entire thing to deactivate and allowed them to land(That's all the star-wars references for now)

One thing that would be crucial is having giant ships have a weakness, right now there are non because of how shields work(Protecting the outside and inside equally, along with other things) Maybe something along the lines of hacking systems or blowing up some continuum that allows ships to teleport

 

[Lecic]

Only thing I dislike about this is the 5 party max. As long as there's space on the GUI for it, you should be able to have as many as you need. Maybe even shrink the individual members to fit more if needed?

 

[Criss]

Only thing I dislike about this is the 5 party max. As long as there's space on the GUI for it, you should be able to have as many as you need. Maybe even shrink the individual members to fit more if needed?

Well that would be so it didn't get confusing or cluttered. There would be more people in a fleet overall, but only a certain number per wing.