Star Made Multiplayer Faction Combat tactics

[CrackShotCleric]

So this topic is primarily for the GreyBeards among the forum population, however it is not excluded to them only. That said, has anyone or any group of players actually begun to devise multi-sector battle strategies?

As I have been perusing the forum threads, from one faction thread to another, and then through the general discussion threads, no-one seems to have actual combat strategies other then, make large powerful ships and go in gun's blazing untill they are dead, or we are dead...

Pardon me for criticizing, however that isn't really a strategy, much less a battle plan. I have been playing on space simulators for a while. While games like Eve Online and BGO have the large sectors with sometmes hundreds of players swarming about, they aren't like StarMade in the sence they are still linear..

Contrarty to popular belief, just because a battlefield has three dementions, does not make it three dimentional, per-say. While I can arc above you and attack your rear, the battlefield as a whole is quite flat..

Take BGO for example...while there was plenty of y-axis menuvering room for even the largest capitol ships. battle plans eventually boiled down to something I fondly remember the enemy calling "The Cylon Wall of Hate." To say the least, my clan was pretty good at gathering GOOD followers...and ranking up through the ship classes rather quickly. As you can guess at the name the enemy gave our battlestrategy, it was simply get enough ships to form a wall, and walk from one side of the map to the other...there was no flanking to worry about, we just stretch from boundary to boundary..

StarMade isn't like that however...that BattleStrategy isn't possibe because there are NO BOUNDARIES.

SO, How are you, the Fleet Masters, Grand Admirals, Squadron Leaders, Commadors, and Pirate Lord's creating or altering your battle strategies and plans to accomidate for this? Am I the only person who spends some of my free time working on fleet maneuvers, tatics and deployment plans, or is there someone out there who had the same idea?

Feel free to coment..perhaps we can get together and cook up something great, and make a name for ourselves and our factions that the n00bs to come will remember with awe.

 

[CrackShotCleric]

aww, great. the spammers are pushing this down...sorry for the bump guys, feel like crap for having to do it

 

[Comr4de]

Starmade combat is currently all about hit and run. Whoever starts shooting first usually has the better chance at winning. Once you\'ve started shooting, combat always devolves into kite and chase where the attacker chases the target which is travelling in an opposite direction.

 

[CrackShotCleric]

Just because the game is currently in a strategic state of barbaric Gurilla warfare, does not mean it shoud stay that way. That is why I posted this. When Factions actually start to grow, the current \"hit and run\" tactics won\'t necessarily work. Especially so now with the sheild nerf for capitol class vessels. Now that our flagship all have a potential achillies-heel actual battle strategies could be a major benefit. Planning on how to use our flagships and capitols, and then pairing them with escourts and fighter support could change how large faction servers wage war. And when you add other support fleets to the established primaries, and plan for engagements accordingly, the battle goes from cave-man level complexity, to an actual campaign.

Besides, an organised battle stragegy would demolish any \"Kite-and-chace\" based group. the Kiters would focus only on what they see, and would be completly confused when they are met with a well planned attack. Kiters are predictable...and thus more easily defeated.

 

[TangentialThreat]

Maybe if you got a couple of professional military strategists to play Starmade on a supercomputer you\'d get somewhere, but right now there are no tactics. The lag is just too much and survivability is too low. I would recommend bravely charging forward all at once (charge just slightly behind your disposable friends, of course) and hope for the best.



If possible don\'t get too close to your friends. You\'ll collide and make lag or hit them with a missile and then they won\'t like you.

 

[Krazykat]

My old faction used to split up 3 fleets:

Primary Fleet:

Taking the brute of the assault our primaries would face our opponents headlong in an attempt to make them believe this was our whole fleet, we even had a few dummy ships to increase the size of it. They mainly focused on taking down shields and whittling away armor so the other two did maximum damage

Fighter squadron:

as name implies, this group was made up of smaller vessels (corvettes down) that would flank and shoot out opponents once the primaries took down the shields. We had very specialized fighters that carried two dummies to distract turrets and dual missile pods to do serious damage when shields went down. These guys usually didn\'t make it out but at least could cripple capital turrets and most cruisers Also they engaged enemy fighters as they see them

Flanking squad:



A small group of maybe 3-4 battleships that... flanked. they simple rode up on one side and started putting pressure on to reduce it from our primaries. could also do major damage if enemy fleet is already disorganized

 

[MrFURB]

This thread is full of win, and ahead of it\'s time. Right now Starmade doesn\'t have the community organization, the variance in tools, or the playerbase on a server-to-server basis for strategy on a scale that you\'re talking about, but all three of those are going to change as the game ages past it\'s infancy. It\'s a topic worth discussing.



That said, I actually find many of the tactics I learned playing World of Tanks/League of Legends with friends to work well in Starmade.

Namely, always flank twice, never assault once. That means that if you have 2 or more people, set up some sort of diversion (An AI ship pushed by another ship to maximum speed towards the enemy) and then have two equally powerful forces pincer them from their left and right flank, or their upper and lower flank. Most fools will focus down the readily available AI target before re-asessing the situation and switching to the human targets, and when they do they can only fire at one while the other has free reign to flood the target with lead. Being engaged on in three directions is a death sentence for a tightly packed group, moreso when the agressors have radar jammers.

Speaking of, I think too little of the community is making proper use of cloaking and radar jamming. Once you understand how power generation works you can create frigates/destroyers with enough firepower to put a solid dent in even a capital ship and have the capacity to perma-cloak/jam for a hasty, loss-less retreat.

I\'ve even once seen a ship who\'se specific purpose is to shield/carry rediculously overpowered turret-ships near an enemy and then undock them all, creating a battleship/carrier mix I need to replicate sometime.

 

[Krazykat]

World of Tanks actually helped me too, since I always dealt in lighter ships I just applied my knowledge as a T-34 in WoT here and it works sometimes

 

[LaggerCZ]

As much as it seems weird, I consider that most big ships are defeated by forcing enemies to retreat. Giant cruisers carry turrets, and most battlecruiser commanders rely on gunners/AIs in turrets. Take down turrets and ship has to retreat because of unavivability to outgun lighter vessels. If commander does not, his ship is destroyed quickly. Lighter vessels dont carry enough shields to actully defend themselves, which responds in unavivability to defend to medium sized vessels. Medium sized vessels cant dodge incoming fire from turrets and sudffer total destroyment from them. Have bigger combined force and you will win. thats the only actuall strategy on sector scale.

However, in the actuall ship combat, ships win by being better designed than foes and piloted by intelligent people. There are capability of false targets, minefields, kamikadze, cloacking, suprise attacks etc. I saw ships with practically no shields, which repaired their mothership during combat, turrets dropped on planets and grounded ship crew which had to destroy AI systems on planet.. the possibilities are almost endless.

 

[Starlight Walker]

I normaly use scouts to assess the proublem then use cloking ships with shields and radio jammers to come inand destory turrets/big ships then go in gunsa blazing taking out any straglers

 

[CrackShotCleric]

Alright, so this was mostly beneficial. MrFURB, your comment gives me hope. And thank you all for your imput.

Perhaps I should be more clear as for defigning the topic. While the debate on defensibility of Ship classes verses their ability to attack other Ship classes is on the right track, and should definately be used in proper context, this is not the topic of the thread. To be clear, I am wondering how Commanders use this information to form battle strategies for thier fleets, and how they couple this with the boundless space in the game. Unlike BGO and EVE, flanking out of sector required a literal jump, along with loading time, and could only be done along established, predictable lines. StarMade however has none of this, battles are not limited to a sector, or even a group of sectors. ALL space is open to use for combat and transportation.

While I sat and thought about these things, I came up with ideas or plans to use these facts to a fleet\'s advantage. When I say fleet, I am usually refering to a group of manned and unmanned ships that are varried in weight class, usually including at least one to two capitols, anywhere from 4 to 10 frigates, a squadron or at least two flights of one (may be wrong with word usage there, I am refering to a flight compramising of four fighters, where three flights make up a squadron), and perhaps 4-6 gunboats/corvettes.

For those who believe that a fleet compramised such is obsessive, I hate to tell you that this is considered to be a standard, well-rounded fleet grouping.

That established, the usage of such a fleet encountering one of equal size is deemed only as good as the tactics used to deploy it in battle. the current standard of \"Kite and chance\" would leave the fleet crippled, and most likly just as ruined as the opposing force. However, if tatics such as MrFURB\'s and KrazyKat\'s are used, the fleet has a much better chance of both survival and victory.

With this clarified, how do you deploy your fleets to the best advantage?

I am creating pictures to explain my current strategies, and will update as I come up with more, but feel free to discuss.

If you are worried about your enemy learning your plans, don\'t be...For those of us who stay with the game (as many of us from the MC community know) we will all fight on the same side soon enough...Us Greybeards always find eachother once the servers are swarmed with the up-start whelps, and we always end up working together to dominate them.

For knowladge, For victory, FOR THE GAME!

CrackShotCleric

 

[Sir_William_V]

You have to remember that the majority of people this game are most likely around or under the age of 14. I don\'t mean to rudely underestimate them, but I don\'t expect much from that age group. Not to mention that there aren\'t very many large factions on servers, and there\'s hardly a time when 10 people from the same faction online (in my experience). At this stage in the game there\'s not much to be expected realistically.

However, in the future I would certainly expect more strategy in battles, just not currently.

 

[Racr]

and if I wanted tactics I\'d just play Eve Online. (Oh wait, I already am.)

 

[Villainy]

I run the BlackStar Mercs, and as an RP faction, we try to keep it as realistic as possible with out tactics. We have a hodgepodge of random ship sizes, types, and classes. Not many of us use anything larger than a Frigate, with a couple cruisers being used. We do however have TONS of fighters/corvettes, so we have adapated the hit and run/kite chase battletype that currently plagues servers to our own. We set up nets/traps and direct enemies into them. IF you get one large ship pushing HUGE Alphastrike dps, and a couple chasers, most people flee the scene. Based on the assumption, we set out a few ships in the surrounding couple sectors of the direction we want them to go, and then wrangle them. We have a few extremely fast interceptors, instant acceleration, damn-near-miracle handling, and enough firepower to still make you question taking 2 or more on. Once we have them going the correct direction, our ragtag flotilla simply picks them off with turrets and longer-ranged guns. Once I sent myself and another turret-heavy corevette in AT the fleeing party and the reaction was PRICELESS. Instant-hopeless rage.

I myself did play EVE and it\'s \"Make a sphere, shoot at people near your size\" tactics are useful, but not always applicapble here, when I can make a 10 block ship with a 100k block turret mounted. You can get extremely creative, and I feel like you\'re smelling what I\'m stepping in.

I\'ve also found that more often than not players will run to faction/spawn/safe zones in an attempt to get their defenses to assist them. Look up who you\'re fighting, if they have a faction/faction home set. IF so set up a small \"wall\" of defenders to keep them from getting there. That being said we do mostly bounty hunts or search and destroy missions for indiviudals or group when someone starts griefing too much or pisses too many people off.

Other than that however, I\'ve yet to get into an actual fleet engagement. A couple people have had friends, but that\'s when you apply the \"GUNS BLAZIN!\" technique.

What about you, sir cleric, what tactics have you been focusing on?

 

[Nootau]

Starmade Fleets? The fact there are servers large enough to not only find someone to kill but groups of 3-6 to kill on a regular basis surprises me. What servers are you guys playing on, I could use more test subjects for some of my strike crafts >.



As for input, nothing beyond the prior stated hit and run because population\'s too low of combat pilots to be worth more thought. Artist players in titans fall within seconds to a combat pilot in a cruiser or at most a battlecruiser. What room for tactics are there for such conditions?

 

[CrackShotCleric]

That is great, I totally understand your points of the necessity of current battle strategies. Really, I do. That dosen\'t mean you only plan for the here and now.

Sir Villiany, you have struck gold. Your post, along with those of KrazyKat and MrFURB, is the vital essance of what I am looking for. We all know that this is the age of the Gurilla, but should that stop us from planning for the age of Structured Fleet, one where both brain and brawn dictate battle, and speed and agility take rightful subjective place?

You asked me for my strategies, and I stated previously that I would share. But I will caviot that by saying that Strategies are more then just arrows drawn on a page or picture. Tactics are systems of understanding combat, devising ways to both defeat the enemy with proper usage of force, and also moving the forces you use in a way that is easily understood, and easily replicated in any situation. Space Tactics require more then just names of plans and how to execute them. They reqire a way to understand what you are doing, and a system that allows them to be altered. It was there I started to devise strategy.

An example of this is a simple flank...lets say you order your starfighters to comence a flanking maneuver to the enemy fleet. Time is of the essance, so how do you convey which direction to flank in, how far to travel in that direction before starting the manuver, and then how far you want them to flank past the enemy before attacking...all in a timely manner with no confusion?

That is where I came up with a plan to dictate simple movement...another example where this is crucially important, an advance to the rear to regroup for another attack (that is also known as a retreat, but we commanders never admit defeat, now do we? XP) How do you dictate a simple direction the ENTIRE fleet, no matter what their position or orientation? and then how do you say how far to retreat before regrouping?

My answer was simple...set all directions relative to pre-battle flagship positioning towards the galactic \"even-keel\". (that means when you flagship is set to standard position by hitting the \"C\" key) This could be done another way, which is pointing at the combat zone along one of the 6 primary axis running from the sector in question (the battle sector or zone is (0,0,0) on a three dimentional grid, point to it along the positive or negative x, y, and z axis), and then setting a sector far distant along your current axis to be your \"forward\" beacon. (if you are on the -x axis, facing the combat zone, sector (23,12,04), your \"forward beacon could be sector (56,12,04). there is no shame in using a graphing program to understand the example...pics will follow, I just haven\'t had the time to work on them)

With this idea, I set \"forward\" as direction 1, and followed with the order of human standard for logical directional expression. Thus, left is 2, right is 3, up is 4, down is 5, and backwards is 6.

Now we have basic directions, movement is dictated by a max four part system: The manuver name, and up to three numbers, (a,b,c) where \"a\" is the direction relative to the established pre-engagement \"forward\", \"b\" is the sector distance to be travled in said direction before starting the maneuver, and \"c\" is the optional sector distance to travel before completing the manuver (usually resulting in an attack on the enemy in the designated combat zone).

wall of text, I know, sorry.

There is more, but I wanted to get that out there, so you could A) use it to assist in formulating and explaining your strategies, and B) so you could understand mine when I explain them...Pictures will be posted soon.

 

[Krazykat]

Thank you Cleric, In my experience as Commodore for UEF we havent had a large scale battle yet, however we had multiple small skirmishes spread over a range of about 5x5x5 sectors.

Our server dictates that you cannont travel farther than 50 or -50 on any axis, so it concentrates all the players into a smaller (still large) area, and the admins also reward those who build a homebase within 000 and 10 10 10.

now to directing, THIS IS FOR SMALL SCALE I set a nearby sector for regroup and repair, that becomes the backwall of the operation. and continue to create a theoretical 3x3x3 sector cube of expected combat with the middle of the back end cube being our start. Our objective would lie in the opposite face of this cube, giving us 2 sectors of space between us and our target.



for large scale, make this a 5x5x5 cube to ensure more distance and more room to back up and kite away enemies. Then run whatever maneuvers using the faces of the cube for direction and center.

I like the idea for using the even-keel as a direction, however this can have problems. What if you are on the wrong side of their base (would make you face away from opponents) and were on the defensive?

 

[CrackShotCleric]

I actually came to the same conclusion, which is why I devised the second method. In your planning, do you allocate different groups to different sectors in your 3x3x3 or 5x5x5 zones? Or are you just setting boundaries to contain your fighting forces?

 

[MrFURB]

I actually haven\'t been through too many group battles myself. I remember a few way back when where me and 2-3 friends would ambush people, and one recently where I followed some strangers and quite randomly joined into a brawl. I can\'t wait for combat and economy to be more developed...

 

[Nootau]

I have to ask, how can you talk about tactics to try and perform when there is no real way to see if they work?

War games are nice with rival allies yet you only find tactics fair minded opperators would use. How could you counter what Cover Ops would do? Tactics within a online game such as Star Made, will have to be forged anew. In EvE or even WoT you have set number of locations were the enemy can be or go to. You can see enemies from a good ways, create choke points and so on, this is not so in Star Made. In addition conflicts from start to finish may be only a handful(5-10 before an overheat sometimes) from a sudden strike or an full out strike ends quickly(under 30 seconds from start of a conflict before several die and the striker is already trying to run from the conflict zone).