Games and Theory : The strategy of 3 dimensional warfare pt1+pt2

[ridik_ulass]

Games and Theory : The strategy of 3 dimensional warfare pt1
I have been making these posts for faction, and inturn anyone who will read them, I have been asked specifically to post them here.

OK, This is a bit hard to articulate so stick with me on this.

Firstly to understand where to put the minefields we need to understand where the enemy will most likely be, and why. understanding this will give you control of the battlefield.

In conventional warfare we have valleys and mountains, the romans never expected hannibal to traverse the alps he played against their expectations by using the terrain tactically. but in space there is no such thing, naval warfare is closer to astro warfare as we can relate to using history as an example.

Despite the openness of the ocean if we look at this map, though on a 2d plane we see a lot of convergence as people take the shortest most convenient route. the map might be a bit dated, but it illustrates my point. one important thing we note is that the paths converge because of intention, they wish to go to a destination. In the context of this discussion we can define the destination as a location we wish to attack or defend.

But in the interest of controlling the battlefield and highlighting how these ideas can be used to our advantage, we will discuss this more as a location we wish to defend, our home planet or station and thus this will hopefully help you choose a location from which to start your empire in space.

Again to illustrate convergence here is a map of international flight traffic

what I'm trying to highlight is that despite the origin of the traffic (or enemy) if we know the destination we can assuredly presume the route they will take. we can, after taking some small measures ensure this even more but I'll get on to that.

For now let me explain convergence in starmade and 3 dimensional space, via some shitty ms paint images.

if anyone in starmade is traveling more than a few sectors its absolutely necessary to use the navigation array so lets casually look at how that works. it like most common sense things takes the shortest path, but how it displays that path is integral to. as it points not to the destination, but the next sector in the chain, even if you're only in that sector for a few meters.

as we can see here

even though this is a short distance , 11 sectors in one axis in this case "X" we can see that not only do both travelers enter the same sector before entering the destination. But they enter it at the same point, as the sector marker displays the same for everyone else which is at the center of the side of the 3 dimensional cube that is the sector.

increasing the distance along a specific axis ensures all your enemies will be coming from one side of you. basically putting the back of your empire against the void of uninhabited space. I think 100 sectors is enough but if this post gets much attention it might escalate the issue.

if we add a 3rd dimension we get something that literally becomes a bottle neck (in shape)

This makes placing mines strategically viable in the void of space, creating a common path by forcing your enemies to traverse a large distance to get to you. means you only have to mine maybe a 3x3x3 sector area to make it impractical for them to travel to your base, increasing the sectors used in your mine field make it harder for the enemy to find the edges and navigate around it.

knowing where the minefield is, you can direct your allies to a roundabout sector or a waypoint, in order to go around or above it.

these are some mines I made with turret mounts to keep the greif up, they are long and spindially to cause centripetal force to roate them when someone crashes into them, causing them to flip around and collide again with the target.

they are 200x200x200 give or take with no shields and 1mil regen energy. and some thrusters to move them around.

the idea is you go to a target sector, place a station block place a shop block and buy 10-20 of them (about 1mil each) and litter the side of the sector cube you expect the enemy to enter from, as soon as he enters a new sector, they will be in his face sooner than his navigation array can update.

they won't kill a lot of larger ships, but if you have to fly a massive behemoth 100 sectors and every new sector you have to deal with this crap slowly wearing down your ship maybe taking out your fleet scouts and what not. and most smaller ships will be dead before they know wtf.

(oh and if you want to be a total turd you can leave them all over your enemies stuff, they are easier to buy and leave around then clean up) even if their planet or station is protected players and small ships can still get caught in them.

I call them dragons teeth after the ww2 era tank traps the germans used.

I am entirely open to questions, ideas and discussion, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what I have presented here and thank you for reading.

http://imgur.com/a/2CBRA <---all the images I used in one album for a broader perspective.

So I tested out the mines and blockaded a sector I knew there would be traffic the mines had 4 turrets each doing about 20kdps (not an amazing amount) but they had numbers on their side)

here were the mines in position





Ridik Ulass CEO,

The Euro-Corp Syndicate - Building a Better Universe

 

[ridik_ulass]

Games and Theory : The strategy of 3 dimensional warfare. Pt 2
Orientation and Alignment,as well as standardisation of phrases.

Like before bare with me, as these Ideas can be sometimes hard to articulate if you have any questions please ask and allow me to elaborate where needed.

in 3d space we lack context for defining our surroundings, planetside (earth) we have north and south, up and down and east and west. If the galaxy in starmade was accurate we could have coreward (towards the galactic core) and rimward (away from galactic core) spinward (following the galactic spin) anti-clockwise (opposite to spinward) having 4 points of orientation up and down would be defined for us.

but in starmade this is not the case, though phrases of orientation like rimward and coreward are useful planet side as planets are disc shaped they lack context in the overall Game universe.

so we work with what we have, we do conveniently have x,y,z coordinates and we can define 0,0,0 as galactic center, but that doesn't really help as a point of relative orientation as its hard to observe from any real distance. Thankfully we have a second standardized point of orientation, what I have come to call celestial north (or galactic north) this is where your ship points when you press "C"

Using this at the galactic core, or anywhere will align you to Z+ orientation, or "forward" as all ships level out in the same way we can define behind us as Z-, above and below us as Y+ and Y- and left and right X+ and X-.

I always found it weird that survivalists have all these tricks for defining north, when we have 3 points of orientation we can always define the other 3 by using our own selves as we are 3d entities and exist along these 6 axis. for instance I know that the sun rises in the east(japan land of the rising sun), and up and down is obvious because we stand. so If I point my right arm towards the morning sun our left is always going to point west and we are going to be facing north with due south behind us. if we wish to re-orientate we simply point our left arm towards the morning sun and now we are facing south. I used this idea to effectively navigate maps in the real world as well as the maps in the ARMA 2 mod day-z without a compass.

The XYZ of something doesn't just define how you are aligned but also your relative position to your objective, and thus how you should be aligned to expect to intercept the objective.

The objective can be an enemy, a planet or asteroid (or any celestial object), a station or a fleet (friendly or enemy)

we define this area as the "AREA of OPERATION" or "AO" for short. if we engage an enemy we define it as the "AREA OF ENGAGEMENT" or "AOE"

If for instance we are grouping up as a fleet several sectors ahead of the AO, we are several sectors in the Z+ so we need to align Z-, this is especially useful for combat engagements as we can preparedly have our weapons pointed in the right direction. for large ships which take a while to align doing this in advance of engagement is again especially useful

once we get used to the orientation and language we then have the tools to organise fleets and issue maneuvers. if everyone is aligned and oriented the same way giving orders to a fleet makes moving in unison all that much more easy. telling someone to go above or around the enemy means something specific to that person at that time, but telling someone to move 5 sectors into Y+ of the AO and align to Y- is something that can be interpreted equally by everyone regardless of personal context.

In my first fleet engagement, I noted that the enemy flag ship was rather shallow. I instructed my fleet to move to Y+10 and align to Y- (towards the aoe) the enemy flagship though 800m long was only 40 tall and there was only 20 blocks to the core, despite its size my fleet of smaller ships had no issues punching its core out.

Other phrases that are useful

AO - Area of Operation

AOE - Area Of Engagement

Align - (turn your ship to point to a location, in preparation of moving or shooting)

Eyes on - visual confirmation (you can see it yourself)

Contact - navigation/radar signature

Hostile - aggressive/enemy (sickle fleet has hostile contacts in the AO)

KIA - Killed In Action (ship destroyed)

E-KIA - Enemy Killed In Action (enemy ship destroyed)

Moving - (moving to an area {moving to Y positive of the AOE)

Engaging - (attacking targets (Engaging 5 enemy hostiles in X- of the AO)

Transversal - (moving perpendicular to the enemy ship, a high speed transversal will make it hard for large main guns mounted inside the enemy ships to track you)

SitRep - Situation Report (sickle fleet can I get a SitRep on the X- flank?)

Primary - Primary target (kill this above all else)

Secondary - Secondary target (kill above all else other than Primary)

Tertiary - Tertiary (3rd) target (kill above all else, other than secondary and primary)

FC - FLeet Commander (Hammer fleet has eyes on enemy FC, defined as Y- of the AO, primary target confirmed, moving to engage)

Interdict - To confront and halt the activities, advance, or entry of., to intercept in an aggressive manner

axis - the side of orientation in 3d space

CAC(Shit) - Capital Artillery Cannons (where I'm from cac is another word for shit, thus we have started calling Capital artillery shit)

The parallel - the line along an axis (Sickle fleet is in the AO, we need you to "shit" on the Z parallel -1X {this would direct the artillery ships to shoot everything along the Z axis 1 sector in the -X of the AO)

PoC - Point of convergence

AS voice and accents can be similar on voice comms, its best to refer to your self in 3rd person by your fleet name to avoid confusion Ideally only the fleet or squad commander should be speaking during large engagements to avoid tying up comms with unnecessary chatter. this will allow fleet commanders and admirals to understand the flow of events as to who is engaging what and where. if for instance sickle fleet is in X- and sword fleet is in X+, and sickle fleet engages an important primary, sword fleet can interdict the engagement by transversing the AO. If hammer fleet is in Y+ is can either move directly to X- or move to the AO and group with sword fleet, align to X- and move in unison.

While an inexperienced enemy might just plug in the cords and start moving to destination being able to coordinate how when and where from we engage a target from allows us to move out of the way of capital artillery fire, having smaller interdiction fleets scout they can give targeting formula to larger artillery fleets several sectors outside the AOE, and the standardised coordination of a fleet allows for universal context and interpretation as to its meaning. Large artillery ships might have awful turning speeds but several sectors away from the AOE the transversal of enemy ships is reduced making it more practical to hold the large guns best for breaking shields several sectors +z of the AOE. they can orientate relative to intel or fleet coordination and bombard an entire parallel from relative safety.

Using large artillery accurately will allow smaller faster interdictors to go for concentrated core shots, align to a shallow plain where the ship lacks depth to the core and burrow in for the kill.

for instance, a ship that is wide and long but not tall, is best engaged from the Y parallel/axis, but artillery fire can come from the Z parallel the shields of the Target can be broken at range while the interdiction fleet can core shot from relatively safety.

Ridik Ulass CEO,

The Euro-Corp Syndicate - Building a Better Universe

 

[Enkelados]

Wow a great guide it showed me some points i didn't even think about

 

[iPwn_]

An extremely well written guide. Well done.

 

[Deleted member 301635]

And I came here looking for fleet tactics... which no-one seems to know about or use.

 

[ridik_ulass]

And I came here looking for fleet tactics... which no-one seems to know about or use.

well the game doesn't really support large fleets, anything after 10 players starts slowing down servers so a "small" 10v10 will crash them, you can't really have much fleet tactics when anything that requires tactics causes server crashes.

that being said there have been times when they were used, before crashes but sharing them publicly wouldn't really be very strategic would it?

 

[Deleted member 301635]

Actually, with the new NPCs, fleet battles are possible. I also meant things like raids and hit-and-run tactics, which all seem to be very basic.

 

[Saxopi]

One of the more prominent things about the absence of strategic locations and open-world areas is that most of the time it becomes a numbers game, meaning a tough, well-defended base might have a hard time if it's just going to be wolfed by 20 or so small or medium spacecraft with decent firepower. If you play Starcraft long enough this is where the term zerging came from - destroying a well-rounded fleet with a huge bunch of smaller and cheaper craft.

I've had this experience lots of time when I was new to the game. I could build a ship that does 2000dps but pirates end up devouring me anyway, with not enough time for me to train my sights on them.

 

[Solarquatic]

Pi-Rex,
Small ships are at such a huge disadvantage right now though. AI Turrets, with a near 100% accuracy, need only enough DPS to cripple a small ship with one or two shots and then the fleet of smaller ships becomes beat. Shield power, and damage in general, seem to favor large, well defended ships over small ones. Simply adding more turrets makes the odds even worse for the fleet of smaller ships.

Because large ships are typically covered in turrets with enough damage output to kill fighters/shuttles/light ships in a very short amount of time, and they pack enough shieldpower to soak up fire from these smaller ships for minutes, the lots of small vs. few of large really favors the large.

You make a valid point though, because it is feasible in many other RTS. I myself wish it was more balanced because I prefer flying a fighter,but because turret balancing is just kinda off at this point, it's impossible to survive long against the larger ships.

 

[Winterhome]

A lot of this is based around the idea that the target is going to be moving in a straight line. It works with the vast majority of people, but if a target knows that it's at war, it's not going to take the shortest path all the time.

Perhaps placing a turret mine +2x, -2x, +2y, and -2y would help - preferably, mines with 2.5km range. That way you see if anything is breaking them, and adjust your ambush location accordingly. It'd extend your theoretical scouting range by an extra two sectors if they're placed at max detection range from your AO.

 

[ridik_ulass]

Pi-Rex,
Small ships are at such a huge disadvantage right now though. AI Turrets, with a near 100% accuracy...

sadly in the game with a speed cap and no such thing as traversal speed effecting the turrets, the speed of the target going horizontal across the attackers field of view, and the ability of the turret to not only turn fast enough to keep up but turn faster to lead the target and shoot in front of it to account for time needed for the rounds to move down range.

 

[ridik_ulass]

A lot of this is based around the idea that the target is going to be moving in a straight line. It works with the vast majority of people, but if a target knows that it's at war, it's not going to take the shortest path all the time...

This is True and it escalates into a paper rock scissors scenario, building minefields are a lot of work, scouts can find them so then it might be useful not to build them or at lease more productive, but then people expect there not to be any so building them becomes useful again. Intel is always important and players are lazy, with the way wars are fought around here people kill 1 unmanned ship and declare it a victory and parade around about it, so destroying a minefield a collection of unmanned ships can be a better victory then harassing a faction home with nothing to destroy in the area.

to describe every potential battle, every possible out come and every appropriate response would be some sort of combination of hubris on my part for assuming I could know everything, and a failure on my part for explaining every potential response I may have to a specific engagement to potential enemies. it would also be outside the scope of that specific post.

The original idea for the post was to explore some unorthodox methods for current combat, and then proceed to make a case for their use.

 

[Krazykat]

I remember an old thread (FOUND IT http://oldsite.star-made.org/content/star-made-multiplayer-faction-combat-tactics) where we got kinda deep into combat maneuvering and fleet tactics, It's a good read and helped me brainstorm some maneuvering tactics I use now

 

[Keptick]

Impressive understanding of the battlefield. Now I understand why the syndicate is so effective!

 

[Keptick]

And I came here looking for fleet tactics... which no-one seems to know about or use.

Large fleet tactics might be cool in theory. But in reality it's mostly just dead servers unfortunately. ..

 

[Mered4]

While I like the idea of seeding areas with turrets around your homebase (this should be standard procedure for all factions in a serious PvP server anyway) by figuring out where the enemy will come from based on his point of origin....

In reality....it just doesn't work that way. SoP for attacking a stationary enemy, on a 2D or 3D map, is to attack from the direction that he least expects at all times if at all possible. That means I'll be telling my fleet to set up 10-15 sector detours around the *lane* between our bases/known staging points. For less experienced players, it might mean just one or two *extra* waypoints, but for a fleet on Teamspeak, this is easy enough to set up.

Orson Scott Card put it very well in Ender's Shadow - You cannot feasibly cover all directions at once at a sufficient enough distance to have sufficient warning such that you can defend against the enemy. The game doesn't support it right now, and neither does physics.

The most FOOLPROOF plan is to always attack first. This means you should be careful with your faction relations if things are serious on your server.

3D strategy is very similar to that of nuclear warfare in Star-made's present state: Attack first, or die first. Your choice. In addition, stealth ships are extremely easy to make if you have practice. A powerful stealth ship is also easy to make in that regard. (I mean big, not necessarily efficient).

I like the guide, m8. Keep it up!

 

[ridik_ulass]

In reality....it just doesn't work that way. SoP for attacking a stationary enemy, on a 2D or 3D map, is to attack from the direction that he least expects at all times if at all possible.....

on paper you are right, on paper. but the organisation level of these factions right now is well below par, I get called an elitist for making voice comms mandatory in my faction, its hard enough trying to get these guys to log on at the same time, No one here is even close to an organised military force, I barely adhere to the standards I hold dear because its just not needed, I'm growing fat and lazy because the biggest threat I have come across is oversize base turrets protected by invulnerability.

 

[Mered4]

on paper you are right, on paper. but the organisation level of these factions right now is well below par, I get called an elitist for making voice comms mandatory in my faction, its hard enough trying to get these guys to log on at the same time, No one here is even close to an organised military force, I barely adhere to the standards I hold dear because its just not needed, I'm growing fat and lazy because the biggest threat I have come across is oversize base turrets protected by invulnerability.

I agree. But this is all hypothetical, and assuming we can get more than five people to work together for longer than thirty minutes for a coordinated assault.

I hope that RTS-style controls/communications are in the works somewhere. I really want a massive fleet battle :O

 

[ridik_ulass]

I agree. But this is all hypothetical, and assuming we can get more than five people to work together for longer than thirty minutes for a coordinated assault.

I hope that RTS-style controls/communications are in the works somewhere. I really want a massive fleet battle :O

Its not entirely hypothetical I have been involved in several suck engagements as well as some practice engagements, mostly it has led to server crashes sooner or later, usually to bad flight coordination and people crashing ships into each other, it has even been suggested the crashing was intentional due to a assumed inevitable loss of the engagement by the enemy allowing them to sue for a draw.

in my limited experience fleet commanding military engagements what tactics I have used have been effective, that being said we were engaging enemies with out even voice comms, so its hardly bragging rights.

 

[NeonSturm]

I like the OP, but there are major issues for most players with this.

1st issue: we are missing map and activity statistics for faction territory/routes.

• We can not get any heat-map without experienced fleet commanders (hard to find on some servers and very annoying to not have this for smaller (because friend or UTC+X -specific) factions).

2nd issue is, that mines now chain-explode, but smaller mines do only few damage.

• You need them tall (no big target to shot and hit with guarantee)
• You need a oscillating movement to avoid shots. Oscillating around a line toward the target.
• You need shields to protect them until they impact, but shields stop the explosion.

It may be that your navi updates delayed or turrets fire delayed at mines, but same applies to your mine's navi and AI.


3rd issue: real inter-world space is not full-3D currently - you require slingshot mechanics for fast travel. StarMade does not have such a thing, neither mine-fields rotating around a star.


4th issue applies to movement. Real space-ships either have fuel (thus it costs more money to attack very distant destinations or with over-sized ships) or you spend most money into thrusters.

• IRL, locally made Star-bases will always be more cost-efficient than ships in a fight.