Firepower, why and how it can be changed

Firepower, why and how it can be changed (Full Version)

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Plant -> Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/6/2013 4:20:24 PM)
Firepower is used by ships to determine it's behaviour in the design screen. I also believe it is used to determine AI relations due to "differences in strength and power". Mainly, Firepower is the addition equal to the damage of the weapon itself, which works out nicely as more powerful weapons have longer range or fire rate. Firepower is also applied unevenly. Fighter bays for instance do not add anything to the firepower rating. This means that a fleet made up purely of carriers would have an extremely low firepower rating. However, this wouldn't be a problem if it turns out that firepower does not affect diplomatic relations. AI ships and your ships automatically respond differently depending on whether they percieve the opposing ships as stronger or weaker, using firepower rating as that metric. However it is somewhat inaccurate, as it only takes into account of weapons with no account taken of defences. This leads to odd behaviours such as your manually designed, stronger ships attempting to standoff to weaker ships, whilst the weaker ship closes in. I beleive that the firepower rating should be changed to reflect the actual combat capabilities of the ships to prevent such odd behviours. How should it be changed to reflect the "true power" of the ship? There is a formula that can be used. I am not sure where this from, but I think it has been used in other games. Simply put the accurate power of the ship is "the square root of (Attack x Defence)". Attack power is perfectly served by the current firepower rating of weapons, with the excepton of fighter bays. To keep things simple, Defence can be represented by the addition of shields and armour. As it turns out, whatever numbers chosen for the defence rating bears no relation to the numbers chosen for offence. So whether a shield would have a "defendrating" of 1 or 100 would not matter, as the overall firepower rating comparison between the ships will be the same. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think it is important for the ships to interact properly? If so, how do you think the firepower rating should be changed?

zenkmander -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/6/2013 6:08:50 PM)
Yes this would be a great fix! I tend to design more on the defensive side, so it feels almost like an exploit when enemy ships attack my 'weaker' ships in confidence, only to do very little damage and end up destroyed. Shields/armor should definitely be part of the equation.

Icemania -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/6/2013 9:58:49 PM)
Good point Plant. I'm not sure about the formula, as I've never looking into this, but I agree with the concept.

Deathball -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/7/2013 8:21:44 AM)
Isn't firepower itself just based on overall weapon strength i.e. the first burst when all weapons fire simultaneously?

Plant -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/7/2013 5:03:03 PM)
The formula is fine, Icemania. It's simple and works perfectly. A ship with double the weapons and half the shields is equal to the other ship, as it should be. A ship with triple the weaponry and shields has triple the strength over the other ship, as it should do. (Yes, I know that in reality, the 3 times stronger ship can just about win over 3 ships a third of it's strength, but no need to complicate things. It still works much better than current firepower as an indicator of the military strength of the empire.) Yes, it is equal to the first burst when all the weapons fire simultaneously assuming you are shooting at point blank range. This works out fine as a way of determining the attack power of the ship, as the game designer has given those weapons with higher damage larger sizes or longer time to fire. (Digression, what is called fire rate in the game is the opposite of what fire rate means in real life.) What it doesn't work out well for is determining the "strength" of the ship. The "strength" of the ship is used to determine the AI reaction to other ships. Military ships are normally set to fire all weapons at weaker ships and evade stronger ships. However how the strength of the ship is percieved is through firepower, which is an inaccurate way of determining the strength of the ship. What I am proposing is a change to how the strength of the ship is determined. It doesn't particularily matter what the numerical value is called.

Deathball -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/7/2013 11:08:18 PM)
That formula would produce some really weird results depending on how far away you are from perfect balance to the point where a ship with only weapons would always have a strength of 0 even though it could actually carry enough firepower to destroy entire fleets before they can do any serious damage to it even without any shields.

Spidey -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/8/2013 3:41:24 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Plant The formula is fine, Icemania. It's simple and works perfectly. A ship with double the weapons and half the shields is equal to the other ship, as it should be. A ship with triple the weaponry and shields has triple the strength over the other ship, as it should do. The formula works perfectly? I'm not sure I agree. How do you factor in weapons that bypass shields? How do you factor in weapons that do reduced damage vs armor? You're still going to see odd behavior so the formula is hardly 'perfect'. You're also essentially assuming that complete balance between offense and defense is superior, even though a high enough alfa strike might well punch straight through the balanced ship's defense. A ship with 40 attack and 40 defense would end up at 40 power. A ship with 70 attack and 10 defense would end up at 26.5 power. In both cases, the ship has defense + 30 vs the other ship. Should there really be a difference between them? Let's scale up. A ship with 400 attack and 400 defense vs one with 700 attack and 100 defense. The first has 400 power while the second has 264.6. Is that a perfect way to measure up the relative strength difference between those ships? Or would you agree that the formula hardly works perfectly? The current way to measure ships results in odd behavior now and again and this slightly expanded formula you're proposing does the same. It seems to me that the question isn't whether one is bad and one is perfect but rather how often they result in odd behavior and how often those areas of oddity match in-game conditions. By the way, that last part you said about a ship needing 300% attack AND 300% defense to be three times stronger than the comparison ship? I don't see how that adds up. If ship A can do three times more damage than ship B in the same time and last just as long then it seems to me that A is literally three times stronger, even with matching defense. If A can also last three times longer then we're really talking about lasting three times longer and in each of those times dealing three times the damage. Three times three means A ends up being nine times stronger. Let's put raw numbers on. If A lives for 12 seconds and deals 300 DPS and B lives for 4 seconds and deals 100 DPS, would you say that A is only three times stronger than B? A deals a total lifetime damage of 3600 while B deals a total lifetime damage of 400. Mind you, I'm not saying you're wrong but I am stressing that I don't understand your math.

Plant -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/9/2013 4:16:09 PM)
It works perfectly as an abstract way to use the abstract values of offense and defence as a way to compare the abstract strength of ships for the purposes of AI Reaction and Empire military strength. Which is what I am reply to icemania about. The current system doesn't figure in weapons that bypass shields, nor those that does not. The current system doesn't factor in weapons which do reduced damage vs armour either. Or weapons that does area damage. Or that of the effects of combat speed. Of course it isn't perfect for working out which ships will win out against another ship, but the formula itself works perfectly well as a way to model ship combat strength as a way to determine ship AI and Empire Military Strength, which is the point of the original firepower rating. For a tiny gain in complexity, it certainly works a lot better than comparing solely firepower. quote: You're also essentially assuming that complete balance between offense and defense is superior, even though a high enough alfa strike might well punch straight through the balanced ship's defense. No, there doesn't exists enough alpha strike in the game to destroy a "balanced" ship. Except perhaps the death star. Which has 30 000 firepower. Which I wouldn't classify as a pure combat ship. So that's fine then. quote: A ship with 40 attack and 40 defense would end up at 40 power. A ship with 70 attack and 10 defense would end up at 26.5 power. In both cases, the ship has defense + 30 vs the other ship. Should there really be a difference between them? Yes. Simulate it yourself. The 40/40 ship has half its shields left vs a 70/10 ship. quote: Let's scale up. A ship with 400 attack and 400 defense vs one with 700 attack and 100 defense. The first has 400 power while the second has 264.6. Is that a perfect way to measure up the relative strength difference between those ships? Or would you agree that the formula hardly works perfectly Not sure what scaling the ship sizes would do to change anything. If the 400/400 ship faces against another 700/100 ship immediately after defeating the first, it has about half chance of winning over that too. So your example shows that 400 vs 265 seems accurate. quote: The current way to measure ships results in odd behavior now and again and this slightly expanded formula you're proposing does the same. It seems to me that the question isn't whether one is bad and one is perfect but rather how often they result in odd behavior and how often those areas of oddity match in-game conditions. Did you test it out yourself practically or in theory? On what basis do you base that it doesn't match in game conditions? quote: By the way, that last part you said about a ship needing 300% attack AND 300% defense to be three times stronger than the comparison ship? I don't see how that adds up. If ship A can do three times more damage than ship B in the same time and last just as long then it seems to me that A is literally three times stronger, even with matching defense. If A can also last three times longer then we're really talking about lasting three times longer and in each of those times dealing three times the damage. Three times three means A ends up being nine times stronger. Let's put raw numbers on. If A lives for 12 seconds and deals 300 DPS and B lives for 4 seconds and deals 100 DPS, would you say that A is only three times stronger than B? A deals a total lifetime damage of 3600 while B deals a total lifetime damage of 400. I am not sure why you ignore the very next sentence in the same paragraph which compared like for like resources. Three 100/100 ships vs One 300/300 ships. A ship with 300/300 vs a ship with 100/100 would cost 3 times more. (Actually a bit less, but keeping things simple!) If you take that a 300/300 ship is 3 times stronger than a 100/100 ship as dictated by the formula, it is no wonder that the 300/300 ship appears to be 9 times stronger than the 100/100 ship, as the 300/300 ship costs 3 times the resources. 3 x 3 = 9. quote: ORIGINAL: Deathball That formula would produce some really weird results depending on how far away you are from perfect balance to the point where a ship with only weapons would always have a strength of 0 even though it could actually carry enough firepower to destroy entire fleets before they can do any serious damage to it even without any shields. No? A ship with only weapons doesn't have the weapon power to destroy a similar sized ship with same weapon type with even a small amount of shields/armour, never mind a fleet. Whilst the other ship would probably destroy your only weapons ship on its first salvo. If you think about it, a ship with no defences whatsoever really does have a near 0 ability as military strength. Besides, I never said a ship would have to count as having 0 defence if it didn't have any shields/armour. If you like, the components that make up a ship is a small proportion of defence, though if you want accuracy, you'll have to make any component have a very small amount of defence value compared with shield/armour. That can be up to you to discuss how much it should be worth in comparison to shields and armour.

Plant -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/10/2013 3:14:34 PM)
So did either of you test what you espoused? I realise that I didn't tell you how to test the ship designs in an objective way, so I'll help you out. Set the attack overmatch to 5:1 so the AI doesn't run away. The ship designs must be set to point blank vs both weaker and stronger enemies otherwise they will react differently depending on firepower, with enough reactors to move and fire all weapons. Weapon chosen was Maxos as their size of 5 is perfectly divisible with the 10 size of shields. Goto editor and make ships a near enough distance that they can notice each other; gift the opposing ship to an empire you are at war with.

Plant -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/13/2013 6:20:05 PM)
Hit and run. Spidey and deathball. They come in, disparage the idea with their absurd reasons and never come back to reply. Sigh. You know since the developer was reading the forum and all. I thought it was a simple to understand, simple to code and non-controversial idea that could improve game play. I guess in the end not many care about making the ships behave more intelligently. And rather care more about typing that ships without any defences is a good idea.

Spidey -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/14/2013 1:22:25 AM)
No worries, Plant. I'm still around, but a harddrive crash (and the amount of tweaking and reinstalling I had to do afterwards) as well as a very untimely browser crash have kept me from offering any kind of reasonable answer. Regarding your suggested test, I have to say that I'm not sure why you feel that those results can be generalized to apply in every situation in the game. Particularly since the steps you take to keep things simple also mean that you intentionally leave out various factors such as weapon range, rate of fire, ship mobility, and CMS systems. And there's the whole thing about railguns and gravity beams as well, since they bypass defense to various degrees. Also, it does get kind of wonky to just add up armor as a second shield, since the game seemingly treats armor in a more complex manner. For more info on armor, see post 7 at forums/tm.asp?m=3345990&mpage=1 and yes, I'd be happy to linkify it, but I need to wait a week after my tenth post before the forum will let me. Spambot measure? Anyways, in order to account for these kinds of effects you would need a much more complex formula that still wouldn't be "perfect". However, your formula doesn't attempt to account for them so it therefore cannot be perfect either. Can we agree that your formula does not provide a perfect estimate of ship vs ship power rating? And yes, the word I'm really not fond of here is "perfect". [:)] quote: No, there doesn't exists enough alpha strike in the game to destroy a "balanced" ship. Except perhaps the death star. Which has 30 000 firepower. Which I wouldn't classify as a pure combat ship. So that's fine then. Considering that shields deliver from 10 to 32 shield per unit size while weapons are hard pressed to manage more than 5 damage per unit size, you're quite right that it's infeasible to design a ship that simply destroys a same size opponent in one volley. Be that as it may, you still just might run into ships heavy on gravity beamss that bypass defense completely. The ultimate gravity gun is size 50 and does 100 damage. Getting hit by a few of those as an alpha strike will surely screw with the "balance" on the "balanced" ship, wouldn't you say? Anyway, after doing a bit of math I'm not quite sure what sort of balance you're thinking about. If we're comparing ship vs sship of same size then your formula ends up with the best design always being that the size sum of weapons should be matched by a simular size's worth of shields. And a ship with armor is obviously weaker than if that space had been used for more shields. Is that balanced? quote: Did you test it out yourself practically or in theory? On what basis do you base that it doesn't match in game conditions? That's not exactly what I said, though. What I said was that all formulas will have situations to which they don't quite capture what would happen in the game. This is because the formula is by definition just an approximation and approximations are by definition inaccurate to some extent. This is okay. We don't want our approximations to be too accurate, we simply want them to be accurate enough while also being easy to use. The question therefore isn't whether or not there are odd zones in your formula or in the one the game uses but rather how big those odd zones are and what the overlap is between the odd zones in the formula and typical gameplay. Let me give you an example. A starter escort with two Maxos and 1 unit of shield vs a somewhat higher tech unit with 0 firepower and 50 units of shield. And let's say 6 assault pods, just for the heck of it. The escort has a rating of 31 and the shield boat has a rating of 0, since 0 firepower * 5000 = 0. So your formula suggests that the escort is the stronger ship, even though it could shoot until it runs out of fuel without making a dent in the shields. This is obviously not quite right and thus an odd zone in your formula, but it's not a particularly important zone since very few ships have no firepower at all. How many of those zones are there in your formula and how often do those zones overlap with conditions you'd find yourself in while playing the game? I can't answer that question just yet, obviously, since I'm still a complete rookie at this game, but once you have an answer to this question, you'll also know a lot more about how weak or strong your formula is as an approximation of ship vs ship combat strength in this particular game. quote: Yes. Simulate it yourself. The 40/40 ship has half its shields left vs a 70/10 ship. If a 40 firepower / 40 shield ship (and yes, I know, it doesn't exist, but this is hypothetical anyway) shoots once as a 70/10 ship then the meager shields burst and the remaining 30 damage start burning through ship components. If the 70/10 ship shoots once at the 40/40 ship then the balanced shields burst and the remaining 30 damage will start burning through ship components. Suppose they both shoot at the same time. After round one they'll both have sustained 30 damage and have no shields. At that point, before we take luck into account, it's suddenly a 40 firepower ship vs a 70 firepower ship. And yet your formula suggests that the 40 firepower ship should be the clear winner. I haven't tested it, mainly because there's a lot of randomness involved in targeting, component destruction, armor leakage, and range. By the way, if you did your testing with Maxos lasers then the range-based damage loss might taint your results. How did you ensure that it didn't? quote: I am not sure why you ignore the very next sentence in the same paragraph which compared like for like resources. Three 100/100 ships vs One 300/300 ships. A ship with 300/300 vs a ship with 100/100 would cost 3 times more. (Actually a bit less, but keeping things simple!) If you take that a 300/300 ship is 3 times stronger than a 100/100 ship as dictated by the formula, it is no wonder that the 300/300 ship appears to be 9 times stronger than the 100/100 ship, as the 300/300 ship costs 3 times the resources. 3 x 3 = 9. I ignored "like for like resources" because we were talking about combat strength. Resource cost has very little to do with whether an opposing ship is stronger or weaker. What I was focusing on is that you were saying that a 300/300 ship is 3 times stronger than a 100/100 ship, but this just doesn't strike me as being true. A 100/300 ship would be three times stronger than a 100/100 ship, since it can sustain three times as much damage, and a 300/300 ship would be a further three times stronger since it can deal three times as much damage per volley, assuming a matching rate of fire. As you say, 3 * 3 = 9. Of course, then we need to factor in risk of overkill and 0 shield enemies not blowing up and suddenly the 300/300 ship would be quite hard pressed against three 100/100 ships. Of course, if the three 100/100 ships came one after another instead of all at once then the 300/300 ship would likely take them all out. But this isn't really a sensible discussion to have, is it? Our way of matching ships against each other based only on firepower and shield is ultimately quite absurd. The mechanics in the game are much more advanced than that so arguing whether a hypothetical A is three or nine times stronger than B while ignoring a whole bunch of factors is arguably not the best use of time. [:)]

Plant -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/14/2013 5:00:46 PM)
ORIGINAL: Spidey Regarding your suggested test, I have to say that I'm not sure why you feel that those results can be generalized to apply in every situation in the game. Particularly since the steps you take to keep things simple also mean that you intentionally leave out various factors such as weapon range, rate of fire, ship mobility, and CMS systems. And there's the whole thing about railguns and gravity beams as well, since they bypass defense to various degrees. Also, it does get kind of wonky to just add up armor as a second shield, since the game seemingly treats armor in a more complex manner. Yes, of course they are left out. The current firepower rating ignores such factors, so I have chosen to ignore such factors too to keep it simple. I am sure I can create a wonderfully complex formula that predicts the outcome of AI ships fighting and the AI will decide what to do based on that and then the sole programmer of the game will trust to take me up on this and implement it. In my dreams. I will repeat the purpose of this thread. Firepower already exists in the game but is inaccurate as it doesn't take into account of defences at all and leads to odd behaviour. So I propose a simple reworking of Firepower. If you want the firepower mechanic to take into account of all the things you want it to account for, it's your prerogative. For more info on armor, see post 7 at forums/tm.asp?m=3345990&mpage=1 and yes, I'd be happy to linkify it, but I need to wait a week after my tenth post before the forum will let me. Spambot measure? I'm well aware of that thread, and the one right after it, and how armour works was dissected and tested and we found out who plays the game and test things out and who don't and emptily asserts that armour works as intended and then in the end Erik Rutins came and said it doesn't work as intended and they will look into it." Anyways, in order to account for these kinds of effects you would need a much more complex formula that still wouldn't be "perfect". However, your formula doesn't attempt to account for them so it therefore cannot be perfect either. Can we agree that your formula does not provide a perfect estimate of ship vs ship power rating? And yes, the word I'm really not fond of here is "perfect". [:)] As I already said; "It works perfectly as an abstract way to use the abstract values of offense and defence as a way to compare the abstract strength of ships for the purposes of AI Reaction and Empire military strength. Which is what I am reply to icemania about." Which is the purpose of the current Firepower. I have no intention of asking that firepower can do any more than that. Don't take a simple comment out of context anymore please. The formula isn't perfect for your needs, that's right, but your needs isn't the same thing as the needs for the purpose of this thread. The current firepower doesn't take into account of defences, I don't see any reason to try to change it so a proposed firepower rating will take into account of a weapon that ignores defences either. quote: No, there doesn't exists enough alpha strike in the game to destroy a "balanced" ship. Except perhaps the death star. Which has 30 000 firepower. Which I wouldn't classify as a pure combat ship. So that's fine then. Considering that shields deliver from 10 to 32 shield per unit size while weapons are hard pressed to manage more than 5 damage per unit size, you're quite right that it's infeasible to design a ship that simply destroys a same size opponent in one volley. Be that as it may, you still just might run into ships heavy on gravity beamss that bypass defense completely. The ultimate gravity gun is size 50 and does 100 damage. Getting hit by a few of those as an alpha strike will surely screw with the "balance" on the "balanced" ship, wouldn't you say? If you aren't fond of the word "perfect", please insert, "It works perfectly as an abstract way to use the abstract values of offense and defence as a way to compare the abstract strength of ships for the purposes of AI Reaction and Empire military strength. Which is what I am reply to icemania about." into that sentence. Anyway, after doing a bit of math I'm not quite sure what sort of balance you're thinking about. If we're comparing ship vs sship of same size then your formula ends up with the best design always being that the size sum of weapons should be matched by a simular size's worth of shields. And a ship with armor is obviously weaker than if that space had been used for more shields. Is that balanced? Yes, that's how the proposed firepower rating works out. Just as the current firepower rating works out that the best ship design is a ship with pure weapons and no defences leading to deathball's stupidness. I didn't invent it to fit a preconceived idea, it's a mathematical model. BTW why would a ship with armour be obviously weaker than if it had been used for sheilds? What attributes are you attributing to? Please explain. quote: Did you test it out yourself practically or in theory? On what basis do you base that it doesn't match in game conditions? That's not exactly what I said, though. What I said was that all formulas will have situations to which they don't quite capture what would happen in the game. This is because the formula is by definition just an approximation and approximations are by definition inaccurate to some extent. This is okay. We don't want our approximations to be too accurate, we simply want them to be accurate enough while also being easy to use. The question therefore isn't whether or not there are odd zones in your formula or in the one the game uses but rather how big those odd zones are and what the overlap is between the odd zones in the formula and typical gameplay. Let me give you an example. A starter escort with two Maxos and 1 unit of shield vs a somewhat higher tech unit with 0 firepower and 50 units of shield. And let's say 6 assault pods, just for the heck of it. The escort has a rating of 31 and the shield boat has a rating of 0, since 0 firepower * 5000 = 0. So your formula suggests that the escort is the stronger ship, even though it could shoot until it runs out of fuel without making a dent in the shields. This is obviously not quite right and thus an odd zone in your formula, but it's not a particularly important zone since very few ships have no firepower at all. Not interested in working out how much fuel a ship needs to take out 50 shield components (a whopping 500 space taken!), so I'll just take you at your word and assume that it wouldn't have enough fuel as if it did have enough fuel as it would render your argument completely void. Why does the escort have a rating of 31? I preume you gave the escort shield a value of 100. So, the escort has tiny firepower rating which is a twentieth of a better ship design of the 50 units of shield ship, and the other has no weapons. What is the problem here? The 0 firepower ship has 0 firepower under the current firepower system. Whilst the other ship quite rightfully poses a small amount of combat ability. Quite rightfully in both cases, the no weapon ship will regard the escort as a stronger ship and respond as you have asked them to. How many of those zones are there in your formula and how often do those zones overlap with conditions you'd find yourself in while playing the game? I can't answer that question just yet, obviously, since I'm still a complete rookie at this game, but once you have an answer to this question, you'll also know a lot more about how weak or strong your formula is as an approximation of ship vs ship combat strength in this particular game. Far less weirdness than the current firepower rating for sure. You have to strenuously find weird situations that may or may not be weird in the revised firepower rating, whilst in the current firepower rating it is a normal thing to have such weirdness. quote: Yes. Simulate it yourself. The 40/40 ship has half its shields left vs a 70/10 ship. If a 40 firepower / 40 shield ship (and yes, I know, it doesn't exist, but this is hypothetical anyway) shoots once as a 70/10 ship then the meager shields burst and the remaining 30 damage start burning through ship components. If the 70/10 ship shoots once at the 40/40 ship then the balanced shields burst and the remaining 30 damage will start burning through ship components. Suppose they both shoot at the same time. After round one they'll both have sustained 30 damage and have no shields. At that point, before we take luck into account, it's suddenly a 40 firepower ship vs a 70 firepower ship. And yet your formula suggests that the 40 firepower ship should be the clear winner. You are assuming that 70/10 means that it'll do a first strike of 70. I am assuming 70 = space devoted to weapons, 10 = space devoted to shields, as otherwise nothing makes sense anyways. I suppose you can think of 70 to mean dps and 10 means hp in RTS terms perhaps would be simpler and ignore alpha strike as long as alpha strike would not destroy in one hit. So the same amount of time it takes for the 70/10 ship to destroy the 40/40 ship, the 40/40 ship has done (4040/70)= 22 damage enough to destroy 2 70/10 ships. Whatever the case is, in testing, the 40/40 ship destroys the 70/10 ship with half of shields left. Actually components themselves provide a little defence so it isn't entirely accurate but keeping thing simple. I haven't tested it, mainly because there's a lot of randomness involved in targeting, component destruction, armor leakage, and range. By the way, if you did your testing with Maxos lasers then the range-based damage loss might taint your results. How did you ensure that it didn't? When they shoot they are always the same distance away from each other. And they start off outside maximum range with enough vector engines to turn ans face each other and are otherwise identical. So range based damage loss doesn't matter as they are always at the same range respectively no matter what. And I tested out several times anyways just in case. quote:* I am not sure why you ignore the very next sentence in the same paragraph which compared like for like resources. Three 100/100 ships vs One 300/300 ships. A ship with 300/300 vs a ship with 100/100 would cost 3 times more. (Actually a bit less, but keeping things simple!) If you take that a 300/300 ship is 3 times stronger than a 100/100 ship as dictated by the formula, it is no wonder that the 300/300 ship appears to be 9 times stronger than the 100/100 ship, as the 300/300 ship costs 3 times the resources. 3 x 3 = 9. I ignored "like for like resources" because we were talking about combat strength. Resource cost has very little to do with whether an opposing ship is stronger or weaker. What I was focusing on is that you were saying that a 300/300 ship is 3 times stronger than a 100/100 ship, but this just doesn't strike me as being true. A 100/300 ship would be three times stronger than a 100/100 ship, since it can sustain three times as much damage, and a 300/300 ship would be a further three times stronger since it can deal three times as much damage per volley, assuming a matching rate of fire. As you say, 3 * 3 = 9. Of course, then we need to factor in risk of overkill and 0 shield enemies not blowing up and suddenly the 300/300 ship would be quite hard pressed against three 100/100 ships. Of course, if the three 100/100 ships came one after another instead of all at once then the 300/300 ship would likely take them all out. But this isn't really a sensible discussion to have, is it? Our way of matching ships against each other based only on firepower and shield is ultimately quite absurd. The mechanics in the game are much more advanced than that so arguing whether a hypothetical A is three or nine times stronger than B while ignoring a whole bunch of factors is arguably not the best use of time. What is so unsensible? The 300/300 ship is quite rightly perceived as stronger than the 100/100 ship in the proposed firepower rating as the current firepower rating. That is what matters. That is why firepower exists. Larger ships are innately stronger and so you can change the formula to add in a factor, but I want to keep it simple, not to make it complicated. Yes, you are correct, the combat mechanics of the game is fairly complicated, too complicated to be encompassed in a short formula. But, why are you talking as if under the assumption that the firepower game mechanic does not exist? Unfortunately, Firepower is a simple game mechanic that exists. It determines AI behaviour. Why do you think it not worthwhile to adopt a slightly more complicated formula that gives huge gains? Responses in colour as quotes within quotes within quotes gets hard to follow.

Spidey -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/14/2013 8:07:44 PM)
quote: Yes, of course they are left out. The current firepower rating ignores such factors, so I have chosen to ignore such factors too to keep it simple. I am sure I can create a wonderfully complex formula that predicts the outcome of AI ships fighting and the AI will decide what to do based on that and then the sole programmer of the game will trust to take me up on this and implement it. In my dreams. The underlined part is not very likely, since there are random factors at play as well. I'll bet you a brand new Ferrari that you can't make a robust formula that isn't simply a probability estimate, which is to say that you might boil things down to odds but you can't possibly predict the winner beyond that. Would an odds based system be better? Perhaps, but then one still has to find a reasonable way to devise those odds and it would be quite hard for a player to understand why his ship suddenly don't like the odds against a different ship. You made this topic saying that it is wonky to just look at firepower and that the "accurate" power of a ship is sqrt ( attack * defense). Is that the accurate power of a ship? Says who? Where's the proof? How do you even define "power"? You then say that attack power is measured perfectly by firepower, even though this quite obviously isn't the case in a game where rate of fire, power use, accuracy, and damage modifiers are not reflected at all in the firepower rating. And then in post 4 you said that your formula works "perfectly". Not "well", not "better", not "amazingly", but "perfectly". If we are going to focus on details then that detail is definitely wrong. I'm sorry to nitpick like this but that's just not the proper term to use. Anyway, let's consider the purpose of our discussion. This topic argues that sqrt( attack * defense ) would be a better way for ships to figure out if that other vessel is bigger or smaller than themselves. I agree entirely that firepower alone isn't the best way to figure that out, at least not in terms of accuracy. Unfortunately, this is where our agreement pretty much ends. You're arguing that your formula is better because it is more accurate and that all the shortcomings of your formula are irrelevant because that would make the formula more complex but that's a hypocritical argument, since your formula is a lot more complex than just looking at firepower. Is your formula a better blend of simplicity and accuracy than what Erik went with? That is certainly possible, but it's not a trivial affair to make an objective argument for what is or isn't exactly the right blend between accuracy and simplicity. I agree that firepower provides a very inaccurate picture of ship combat strength and I agree that your formula is probably a bit more accurate, but what I'm trying to demonstrate is that your formula isn't that much more accurate than the original and that it isn't necessarily better. I'm fairly sure you're not very experienced with model comparisons so I've tried to convey an understanding of the basic issue, and I really don't want to talk about equations in n-dimensional space being reduced to less complex equations in (n-x)-dimensional space and whether you're getting sufficiently similar values at the input ranges you're interested in. Suffice it to say that we're talking number crunching at a somewhat higher scale than just a single ship vs ship battle. That's why I pulled in a somewhat unrealistic example. Mind you, this was an example that I EXPLICITLY WROTE WAS NOT REALISTIC. You then spent two lines telling me that my example sucked because it wasn't realistic, even though I set out to make it unrealistic, precisely because I wanted to show a case of an odd zone in a model that fell outside of the input ranges we care about. And please take to heart that if I'd been less calm when I read your reply then I would've torn you a new fuel exhaust valve for beating on a strawman instead of reading what I actually wrote. But I am strangely calm tonight, so no worries. Mistakes happen to all of us. quote: You are assuming that 70/10 means that it'll do a first strike of 70. I am assuming 70 = space devoted to weapons, 10 = space devoted to shields, as otherwise nothing makes sense anyways. I suppose you can think of 70 to mean dps and 10 means hp in RTS terms perhaps would be simpler and ignore alpha strike as long as alpha strike would not destroy in one hit. So the same amount of time it takes for the 70/10 ship to destroy the 40/40 ship, the 40/40 ship has done (4040/70)= 22 damage enough to destroy 2 70/10 ships. Yes, I am assuming that 70/10 means 70 attack and 10 defense, since you made no mention whatsoever of using "size used for components" in your formula. You talked about firepower for attack and shield + armor for defense. Using the raw size of relevant components is rather different from that. And yes, a size 40 weapons, size 40 shields ship would kill the heck out of a size 70 weapons, size 10 shields ship, assuming equal weapons and shields. This follows quite naturally from shields providing from 10 to 32 effect per unit size while weapons provide 1-5 effect per unit size, excluding the super weapons. In other words, shield capacity grows a lot faster per unit size devoted to it than weapon damage does. The maxos blasters that I'm guessing you tested with deliver an amazing 1 effect per unit size, which is then further reduced by recharge and damage loss over distance. The first shield tech gives 10 effect per unit size with no reductions. At 70/10 distribution, a ship would do 70 damage per volley, assuming stuff. Against a 40/40 distrubution, that ship would have to eat through 400 points of shield. That's six volleys worth of tanking. The 40/40 distribution ship, on the other hand, would deal 40 damage per volley and would only need three volleys to chew through the opposing shields. The difference between the two should be big enough that even random factors won't change the picture too much. If we're looking at the ratings for these two ships, assuming maxos and T1 shields, the 40/40 distribution has 40 firepower so that's a plain 40 in existing rating. The challenging 70/70 distribution has 70. Thus ship A is worried that B is bigger and meaner and probably stays at range. B, thinking that it has an advantage, will try to close the gap. Essentially, the berserker B will close ground fast while the balanced A takes a more cautious approach? That seems reasonable, doesn't it? The outcome won't be changed in this case, since A will destroy B long before B can chew through A's shields. Under your ratings, B has 70 firepower and 100 shield so that's sqrt ( 70 100 ) = ~84. A, meanwhile, has 40 damage and 400 shield, leading to a rating of sqrt ( 40 * 400 ) = ~ 126. And what happens when the ship AIs digest these numbers? The berserker will use it's "I'm scared" setting while A will feel bold and approach a warship that has it severely outgunned with the same swagger that it uses when punching holes in civilian ships. Will that cause problems? Not in this case, obviously, but are there situations where it could be the case? The question isn't whether I've done that number crunching but rather whether you have. Have you? Do you know that there are no situations where ships behave in a suicidal manner or do you merely think it? And please note that if you say that you know it then I will of course ask for proof, becaues without proof there's really no knowledge, only belief. quote: When they shoot they are always the same distance away from each other. And they start off outside maximum range with enough vector engines to turn ans face each other and are otherwise identical. So range based damage loss doesn't matter as they are always at the same range respectively no matter what. And I tested out several times anyways just in case. And this is well enough thought up, but you can see the shortcomings, the uncontrollable factors, and the potential for random fluctuations, can't you? In this particular test, one of the ships outclass the other quite dramatically so small fluctuations aren't important. The test is thus accurate enough, even though it's only accurate at the surface level. By the way, you wouldn't happen to know if the internal calculations use integers or doubles precision decimals or wether the damage loss at range is suffered in steps or gradually? That is to say, would a maxos do 4.01 or 5 damage at range 99? quote: What is so unsensible? The 300/300 ship is quite rightly perceived as stronger than the 100/100 ship in the proposed firepower rating as the current firepower rating. That is what matters. That is why firepower exists. Larger ships are innately stronger and so you can change the formula to add in a factor, but I want to keep it simple, not to make it complicated. Firepower is a simple game mechanic that is so simple that it is too simple. What isn't sensible is a discussion of whether 300/300 is three or nine times stronger than 100/100, since in reality either answer is quite wrong, and both answers assume that there is a metric "strength" that we can use to compare ships. Therefore it really isn't sensible to argue whether the "right" answer is three or nine. And yes, firepower is almost too simple. It tells you very little about the combat capabilities of a ship. Even firepower, shield, armor, and range don't tell you all you might wish to know. Ultimately, I'm pretty sure that's why Erik decided to go with firepower. It is very simple and it is very easy to understand. It doesn't require a pocket calculator to figure out, and for the most part it works well enough. Does the other ship have bigger teeth? If yes, do this. If no, do that. Your formula makes the picture a bit more fine grained, absolutely. Does the other ship have a nastier combination of sharper teeth and thicker skin? If yes, x, if no, y. Would it be less prone to silly situations? Perhaps, but it can still be abused. A ship with two missiles and a whole lot of shield will appear more threatening than a ship with a fair few shockwaves and much less shielding. In other words, expect pirate escorts to soil their decks at the sight of a shielded constructor with a couple of shatterforces on it. They'll keep their distance and have little chance to do any damage before the constructor warp speeds away.

Icemania -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/15/2013 3:49:31 AM)
Agree this needs to be improved.

Plant -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/17/2013 2:39:10 PM)
What needs to be changed Icemania? Current firepower or the proposed firepower? So Spidey, you are still hung up over the word of the use perfectly, taking it out of context, and using it as a general attack over the formula. At this point you are just arguing semantics. You appear to be under the impression that the formula I suggested to be used is some sort of sacred cow. It is not. As an abstract means as a starting point it truly is perfect as your examples of 40/40 vs 70/10 has shown. You even admit it is so, despite initially thinking it was not. You agree that firepower alone is not the best way to figure out if a vessel is bigger or smaller than themselves. Somehow you have missed everything but the use of the word "perfectly". I don't care if a ship is bigger or smaller, I only care about how the firepower rating is used for determining AI decisions in combat and diplomacy. You say the formula is a lot more complex. Then you suggest situations where the formula should be more complicated. It really isn't more complex and is relatively easy to understand. A sqrt of the multiple of 2 sums isn't that much more complicated than a sum. Not that it matters as the game automatically calculates the firepower rating. It's certainly a lot less complex than just about every other formula used in this game. Is it the right blend between simplicity and accuracy? I think it is. But I ask the forum to judge and discuss. But you just come here to attack the use of the word "perfectly" which refers to "it works perfectly as an abstract way to use the abstract values of offense and defence as a way to compare the abstract strength of ships", yet you continue to carry on that the formula itself isn't perfect to predict the outcome of certain situations, which is something I never claimed it does. As for you ship A and ship B circumstance, (I am presuming ship A is the 40/40 ships and ship B is the 70/10 ship even though you confusingly mention the 70/10 ship first), quite rightly would the 70/10 ship should regard itself as weaker, because it is weaker. You refer to the ship as beserker (whatever that means), but if you designed that ship, you would simply set it to the same setting for weaker as stronger. If it is an AI ship, the AI designed ship is an AI controlled ship, you are attributing a design role to the AI ship that it doesn't have. So you say I am using a strawman. Unfortunately that an example you have used. I didn't set it up. You did. To accuse someone of a strawman, when it is your idea that was deconstructed! And then you talk about your emotions. Ok... You say it isn't sensible to try to assume there is a metric strength that can be used to compare ships. Unfortunately, the game goes right ahead and does that anyways whether you think it is sensible or not. It was you who brought it up it the first place, only that now that looking at it logically, it only serves to strengthen my arguments as opposed to yours, you try to say that such comparisons are pointless. It's amazing. It is as if you don't realise that in the game firepower is something that is used for that purpose. Is the current firepower easy and simple to understand? Yes. Is it inaccurate? Yes, you say so yourself. Your solution? Pretend it doesn't exist in your arguments, or presumably to not improve it at all. Does the proposed firepower rating require a pocket calculator to work out? The current one needs quite some time to use mental arithmetic to work out. One you get more than a few wapons you will need a calculator or pen and paper to work out expediently. Not that it matters as 1) You seem to be under the impression that the point of the firepower rating is to design ships with as high a firepower rating as possible. It is not. 2) The game works out the firepower rating automatically, it is a set number that changes in the design screen automatically. You don't need to work it out yourself anyhow. It is dishonest to say the current system is if yes, then x, if no then y. Then to say that my proposed system is to have ships acting with "same swagger that it uses when punching holes in civilian ships" and "soiling thier decks at the sight". I have not proposed any changes to the AI at all, except how they calculate their firepower rating. As for your example right at the end, quite rightly that a ship with shielding is more threatening than a ship without as your own disproved example of 40/40 vs 70/10 has shown. And quite rightly should pirate ships keep away from constructor ships that can not only survive the pirate ships but destroy them. Preumably, you prefer pirate ships to suicidely attack your constructor ships, but if mine were capable of destroying pirate ships, I would prefer they would be more likely to recognise this and warp away and attack targets they can actually hurt.

Spidey -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/17/2013 10:11:06 PM)
This is getting tedious. I write an essay, you ignore it. If we are to have this discussion then I'm going to have to insist that you actually take the time to read what I write and refrain from ignoring half of it because you don't understand it. I'm going to try one more time, and I'm afraid it's going to be a very long read. I've tried to mark very thoroughly what I'm commenting on in the given sections, in order to avoid any kind of confusion. quote: You agree that firepower alone is not the best way to figure out if a vessel is bigger or smaller than themselves. Somehow you have missed everything but the use of the word "perfectly". I don't care if a ship is bigger or smaller, I only care about how the firepower rating is used for determining AI decisions in combat and diplomacy[1]. You say the formula is a lot more complex. Then you suggest situations where the formula should be more complicated. It really isn't more complex and is relatively easy to understand. A sqrt of the multiple of 2 sums isn't that much more complicated than a sum. Not that it matters as the game automatically calculates the firepower rating. It's certainly a lot less complex than just about every other formula used in this game.[2] Is it the right blend between simplicity and accuracy? I think it is. But I ask the forum to judge and discuss.[3]. But you just come here to attack the use of the word "perfectly" which refers to "it works perfectly as an abstract way to use the abstract values of offense and defence as a way to compare the abstract strength of ships", yet you continue to carry on that the formula itself isn't perfect to predict the outcome of certain situations, which is something I never claimed it does.[4] As for you ship A and ship B circumstance, (I am presuming ship A is the 40/40 ships and ship B is the 70/10 ship even though you confusingly mention the 70/10 ship first), quite rightly would the 70/10 ship should regard itself as weaker, because it is weaker.[5] You refer to the ship as beserker (whatever that means), but if you designed that ship, you would simply set it to the same setting for weaker as stronger. If it is an AI ship, the AI designed ship is an AI controlled ship, you are attributing a design role to the AI ship that it doesn't have.[6] So you say I am using a strawman. Unfortunately that an example you have used. I didn't set it up. You did. To accuse someone of a strawman, when it is your idea that was deconstructed! And then you talk about your emotions. Ok...[7] You say it isn't sensible to try to assume there is a metric strength that can be used to compare ships. Unfortunately, the game goes right ahead and does that anyways whether you think it is sensible or not. It was you who brought it up it the first place, only that now that looking at it logically, it only serves to strengthen my arguments as opposed to yours, you try to say that such comparisons are pointless. It's amazing. It is as if you don't realise that in the game firepower is something that is used for that purpose. [8] Is the current firepower easy and simple to understand? Yes. Is it inaccurate? Yes, you say so yourself. Your solution? Pretend it doesn't exist in your arguments, or presumably to not improve it at all. [9] Does the proposed firepower rating require a pocket calculator to work out? The current one needs quite some time to use mental arithmetic to work out. One you get more than a few wapons you will need a calculator or pen and paper to work out expediently. Not that it matters as 1) You seem to be under the impression that the point of the firepower rating is to design ships with as high a firepower rating as possible. It is not. 2) The game works out the firepower rating automatically, it is a set number that changes in the design screen automatically. You don't need to work it out yourself anyhow.[10] It is dishonest to say the current system is if yes, then x, if no then y. Then to say that my proposed system is to have ships acting with "same swagger that it uses when punching holes in civilian ships" and "soiling thier decks at the sight". I have not proposed any changes to the AI at all, except how they calculate their firepower rating.[11] As for your example right at the end, quite rightly that a ship with shielding is more threatening than a ship without as your own disproved example of 40/40 vs 70/10 has shown. And quite rightly should pirate ships keep away from constructor ships that can not only survive the pirate ships but destroy them. Preumably, you prefer pirate ships to suicidely attack your constructor ships, but if mine were capable of destroying pirate ships, I would prefer they would be more likely to recognise this and warp away and attack targets they can actually hurt.[12] [1] No, I haven't missed that part but "bigger" and "smaller" corresponds fairly well with "stronger" and "weaker", which are the terms actually used on the design screen. I'm entirely aware of what you're trying to accomplish. And that's why I've been spending ridiculous amounts of time and text explaining to you that your way of modelling things isn't necessarily better just because it adds one single factor to the formula. You, however, are having a tremendously hard time understanding why more isn't always better. [2] I'm saying a perfect formula for evaluating whether the other ship is "stronger" is a lot more complex. Mind you, I just said a PERFECT formula is a lot more complex, assuming we care about accuracy. A basic formula that sacrifices accuracy (meaning the ability to correctly figure out if the other ship is stronger or weaker) can of course be a lot more simple. But the more basic you make your formula, the more you're going to find inaccurate predictions. And I'm not suggesting situations where the formula "should" be anything. I'm not saying what the formula should be at all. You are. You're making loud and aggressive claims about what should be. Well, if you want to the model to change in some specific way then it's on you to show that your changed model is actually better, not just in very specific spots, but over the entire input range. That's the challenge faced by anyone trying to change the status quo. [3] Precisely. You don't know that it's the right blend, you simply think it. You also don't know that what you're arriving at is in fact the right blend between offense and defense, you simply think it. You don't even know that you're representing offense and defense properly, you simply think it. The thing is, I don't care too much about what you think. What matters to me is your reasoning, your evidence, possibly even any proofs you may have worked out. Everything else is subjective fluff mixed with personal anecdotes, and while such might be entertaining or to some degree inspiring, it's really not worth all that much in this situation. [4] After all this text, all this explaining, you think I came here to "just" attack your use of the word "perfectly"? You think I'm a linguistics geek who cares tremendously about semantics and the keeping the language pure? No, I actually came here to discuss your proposed formula. Strengths and weaknesses, assumptions, testing methods. Unfortunately you're quite unwilling to take things to that level. You want to shout at anyone who dares to question your genius but you don't want to be burdened by scientific rigour, do you? As for me saying your formula cannot predict outcomes, I say that because if it cannot do that then how does it predict perfectly which ship is stronger? It doesn't, obviously. Just like the simple firepower rating doesn't. You're saying the firepower rating is too simplified and you're quite right that it is very simplified, even ridiculously simplified, but your formula is barely any better. [5] I don't see how what I wrote was confusing at all. And no, as I've laboriously explained in exhaustive detail, if the ship with 70 firepower shoots at a ship with just 40 shield left then the ship with 40 shield left has no shield and 30 damage passes beyond to do whatever happens. If a ship with 40 firepower shoots at a ship with just 10 shield left then the ship with just 10 shield left has no shield and 30 damage passes beyond. 30 damage leaks through regardless. Those ships are therefore quite equal in that encounter during the first volley and the advantage goes to whichever ship strikes first. During the second volley, when neither ship has any shield left, the second ship is decidedly superior. I'm guessing you haven't even thought about why your model is breaking down in this situation. 40/40 looks like balance but in game terms, it's just 40% of a single tier 1 shield while 40 firepower is 8 maxos blasters. The size total of combat components? 50. The alternative, a 70/10 ship, has just 10% left of a tier 1 shield and no less than 14 maxos blasters. The size total of combat components? 80. But according to you, this ship is weaker for having as many shield components and six more blasters than the "balanced" ship. Granted, if you put another three tier 1 shields on the first ship then it's going to be a lot better, but that's not the scenario here. We're not talking about a 70/100 vs a 40/400. We're talking 70/10 vs 40/40. [6] You don't know what a berserker is? I'd say Google is your friend, but if you were going to not be lazy about it, you'd have googled the term already. Berserkers were Norse warriors of the viking era who allegedly fought in a nearly trance-like fury. The original belief about them was that they fought without armor, caring only about carving up their enemies. They probably didn't, but the legend persists, making "berserker" a rather appropriate term for a ship that is all attack with very little defense. As for the other part of the marked section, you're quite right that the AI doesn't currently use such ships and that I can work around it if it's my design. That's entirely besides the point, however. What matters is whether your formula get things right or not and in this case it didn't. It rates the ship with less guns and practically no defense left over the ship with more guns and practically no defense left. [7] A strawman is whenever you take something that isn't actually what the opposition is arguing, beat the hell out of the argument the opposition isn't actually making, and then declare that you've managed to refute the opposition. Yes, I made the example and the example shows what I wanted it to show. The strawman isn't the example but rather your misrepresentation of what I'm showing with the example. Can you tell the difference? And by the way, when I explicitly write that my example is unrealistic and you then give me crap about it being unrealistic despite the fact that I clearly intended for that to be the case, then yes, you are misconstruing the argument. That is a strawman and that is exactly what you did. Own up to it or be a chicken, that's your call. [8] No, the game really doesn't do that. The game doesn't insist that a ship with 300 firepower is three times stronger than a ship with 100 firepower. It simply comes to the conclusion that 300 is higher than 100, therefore the 300 firepower ship is "stronger". Beyond that, the game suggests nothing about the properties of the firepower scale, and you can compare different ranks the same way you can compare "mostly agree" with "slightly agree". Which is to say, you really can't in anything but a qualitative sense. What we were discussing, as it happens, was the arithmetic used to come to the conclusion that 300/300 should be exactly three times stronger than 100/100. I think your arithmetic in that situation is miserable at best, and so far you've failed completely to explain it, but it's not all that important because we're discussing something poorly defined. To clarify, we're talking about some metric of strength, but what exactly is that? What does it mean? What does it really mean that A is three times stronger than B? That's not even established so far. [9] You don't know my solution because we haven't discussed it yet, so what exactly are you blabbering about? What could you possibly know about my solution to this problem? And why is my solution the least bit relevant in a discussion about your formula? I do have a much more elegant solution (at least I think it is) than just another oversimplified formula that makes very little sense, but so what if I didn't? What difference would it make? Would it make your formula less flawed if I didn't have a better idea? [10] No, the current firepower rating doesn't require much time or putting numbers on a paper, because not only is it really only the amount of weapons times the damage of the weapons, but it's also displayed on both your ships and enemy ships. Therefore you know exactly how your design will respond to a different design. This makes it very easy for a player to spot if his settings are appropriate. The game does not currently show some weird power rating anywhere so if you want to know what your ship will do when running into that pirate ship then you'll have to punch the numbers into a pocket calculator. What if we display your power rating as well? That way you'd have an easy time knowing what your ship will do when it runs into a pirate cruiser. Unfortunately it would also imply that a ships true power is actually measured by this number, and since the number only takes two factors into consideration, it would end up being rather misleading. What if the "weaker" ship has 30% dodge from ECM systems? Well, apparently this doesn't affect its power in any way whatsoever. Firepower suffers the same problem but it's much simpler than a square root of a product of a partial representation of attack strength and a sum of numbers that partially represent defensive strength. Nobody in their right mind could possibly confuse firepower with anything other than what it is, a partial representation of attack strength. [11] No, it's not dishonest to say that the current system is the equivalent of an if-branch. It is. And it remains the case even with your change, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. I just used a bit of dramatic flair to make an incredibly dry discussion a tiny bit more colorful. What I was getting at is that combat ships tend to have civilian ships massively outgunned, wouldn't you say? Consequently they've got more firepower and usually that means closing in to either point blank or all weapons. On the other hand, against enemies vastly stronger, it seems reasonable to not get into close range and get shredded by every gun on the target. Are those not the default settings? [12]Yes, a ship with shield is more threatening than a shield without, but who has said otherwise? The problem is when we're getting into a discussion of how threatening x amount of shield is relative to y amount of firepower. No, pirate ships shouldn't run away from construction ships that have two maxos blasters and some shields because there's usually more pirates around than there are construction ships, which means the construction ship loses unless it's a one on one against an escort. By the way, the pirates do have warp drives so it's not like they'll get killed unless you put some serious firepoewr on your construction ships. But hey, let's just ignore that tiny little detail, right?

Deathball -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/18/2013 8:39:04 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Spidey I do have a much more elegant solution (at least I think it is) than just another oversimplified formula that makes very little sense, but so what if I didn't? What difference would it make? Would it make your formula less flawed if I didn't have a better idea? Care to share your solution? You seem like you know your math so I'd be interested in what you have to say on that.

Icemania -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/18/2013 10:58:11 AM)
Holy Walls of Text! Has anybody got an Executive Summary?

Darkspire -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/18/2013 1:44:57 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Icemania Holy Walls of Text! Has anybody got an Executive Summary? Big ship slow ... small ship fast ... pew pew pew ... bang boom ... Darkspire

Deathball -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/18/2013 2:37:40 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Icemania Holy Walls of Text! Has anybody got an Executive Summary? Plant says Firepower should be changed to sqrt(Firepower*Defense) because that formula is perfect, Spidey says its not and Plant has no real evidence that it is better

Plant -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/19/2013 2:36:30 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Icemania Holy Walls of Text! Has anybody got an Executive Summary? Summary: Plant: Opening Post. Not much has changed,other than refuting Spideys arguments. Spidey: Doing everything he can because his world view, like Deathball, that having loads of weapons on ship with little defences is superior over a more balanced ship has been overturned. His arguments mostly range from comparing impossible ship designs, being hung up over the use of the word "perfectly", and not understanding game mechanics such aspects of the ship design screen, the firepower rating which we are discussing, the diplomatic system, and attack overmatch. If I am proven right, he says discussing it is a waste of time or that I am beating his own strawman! Deathbull: Still butthurt over my pointing out that you cannot create ships without defences that can destroy entire fleets. For some reason, even though I explicitly stated my intentions, Spidey has gained the impression that the formula I proposed as a starting point, is a sacred cow. I originally contemplated posting instead, that the current formula of firepower to be changed to a sum of not only weapons but also of defence. Of course the problem with that would be to decide what numerical values should be attributed to shields and armour, whereas in the now suggested formula it would not matter in relation to weapons.

Deathball -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/19/2013 5:28:35 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Plant Deathbull: Still butthurt over my pointing out that you cannot create ships without defences that can destroy entire fleets. I love you too, Plant [:'(]

Erik Rutins -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/19/2013 7:53:45 PM)
Hi guys, Can we please scale things back to a more friendly discussion level? I'm getting a tone here, especially from Plant, that when read on the internet sounds fairly confrontational. It should be possible to discuss games and ideas about them without getting personal or rude. For my part - I think we certainly could replace Firepower with something more useful, but I think there are many different possibilities for what would be an improvement there. I'd love to see a wide ranging and constructive discussion on that as we often find great ideas or inspirations for them by reading through the thoughts and discussions of the DW community. Regards, - Erik

Spidey -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/21/2013 1:56:51 AM)
Sorry for the delay guys. I've been doing other things the past few days, as well as playing the game a bit. @ Erik My apologies if I've been too confrontational. There are times when I don't know when to quit, I suppose. @ Deathball I don't know how to make a formula that can provide a reasonable estimate of "combat strength" without being both somewhat subjective in how factors are weighed in and rather unpleasant to work with. On top of that, I think it's risky to throw a dedicated power rating into the game, and while one could argue the merits of having a hidden power rating, it really just makes the experience of uncontrol and silly AI behavior even worse. The more elegant solution, the way I see it, is to avoid even trying and attack the root problem. The root problem, again as I see it, is really ship control. How can ships be made to intelligentely behave as the player intends them to in the face of the enemy? Should they be aggressive, should they try to maintain distance, or what should they do? Using firepower alone is a simple measure that at least means the player can very easily figure out what's going on. There's no puzzle as to what the ships were thinking. It's simple and that's a virtue in itself, but unfortunately it doesn't offer fine grain control nor is firepower a particularly accurate measure of combat strength. Plant tried to solve this by making the combat strength rating consider more factors. This improves on some aspects at the cost of (potentially) adding other problems. My alternative solution is to let the player have more options to think things through in advance instead of trying to improve the "magic number" that the current system relies on. What we need isn't a better number, it's simply the option of choosing behavior based on more factors. Suppose there was an "overrides screen" where the regular firepower rating based behavior can be overruled against various ship classes. That way players could specify a general behavior based on firepower rating and then override this behavior against space ports or carriers or what have you. This way doesn't really change anything in the game, it simply adds more fine tuning to the tactics settings of a given ship design. The only change to anything AI'ish is that the tactics-routine for ship positioning is made to include a check for any excisting overrules for that opposing ship class before it checks for firepower, which in an optimal world could be doable without inducing transient component fatigue on anyone. On top of that, the design files reader would need to be updated but I'd be surprised if that in itself wasn't fairly easy. A new screen would have to be added since there's no space in the current design screen, but that just might be possible without too much gnashing of teeth in an optimal world. Testing requirements? Not too massive, I reckon. The AI designs wouldn't have to use overrules much at all so weird AI behavior against "unusual" player-designed class designs (like size 750 carrier-frigates or what have you) would be minimal. If we change the firepower formula to something more complex, however, then I fear that pretty much every kind of encounter would have to be checked for wonkiness. Granted, a math attack might go a long way of alleviating worries but the risk of unforeseen complications is, as I see it, anything but trivial. There are no perfect solutions, of course, but I do think better results would be reached by adding complexity to the control scheme rather than decision factors. The AI doesn't have to be a lot better at evaluating the combat strength of the opposing ship(s) if the player can make more of the difficult choices in advance.

Spidey -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/21/2013 3:10:23 AM)
@ Plant quote: Plant: Opening Post. Not much has changed,other than refuting Spideys arguments. I don't mean to sound harsh but saying you've refuted something doesn't constitute a refutation. I've explained the potential problems in detail and if you still don't comprehend why I'm saying what I'm saying then the appropriate thing to say is that you don't understand it. Not that you've proved what I said to be wrong, which I'm sure you're also keenly aware that you haven't. quote: Spidey: Doing everything he can because his world view, like Deathball, that having loads of weapons on ship with little defences is superior over a more balanced ship has been overturned. His arguments mostly range from comparing impossible ship designs, being hung up over the use of the word "perfectly", and not understanding game mechanics such aspects of the ship design screen, the firepower rating which we are discussing, the diplomatic system, and attack overmatch. If I am proven right, he says discussing it is a waste of time or that I am beating his own strawman! This is factually incorrect from start to finish. Every single word in the above is wrong. I have to ask myself if after all this writing you really got nothing whatsoever from the exchange other than what you wrote in this quote? If so, one or both of us has failed miserably. Allow me to recap some of the issues. You're suggesting a combat strength formula that promotes a particular set of values as stronger but you have at no point managed to show that ship designs rated as stronger by your formula will in fact always be stronger in the game. Another problem is that you can't seem to make up your mind on whether the formula you're suggesting considers the amount of size dedicated to components or the actual component ratings. Another problem is that you're talking about "balanced" without actually defining it properly, though I'll give you that you've implicitly defined "balanced" as "using as much size for offense as for defense". My preference is not berserker type ships. Quite the opposite, as I have written multiple times. I've talked about berserkers because they fall outside of your pattern in that they should be considerably weaker than "balanced" ships according to your formula, even though I've demonstrated that this won't necessarily be the case in the game. The claim that I don't understand aspects of the ship design screen is optimistic at best. There are numbers on that screen that I can't explain 100% but I do believe I understand the basics of ship combat. You've yet to show otherwise. Final thing, if I intentionally write that some problem isn't necessarily important because it's not one that realistically comes up often then yes, it is a strawman to then bash my example for being unrealistic, since clearly I made no claim to the contrary. If you cannot understand why bashing someone for a claim he hasn't made is in fact a strawman then I fear this isn't the only time we're going to not see eye to eye on things. quote: For some reason, even though I explicitly stated my intentions, Spidey has gained the impression that the formula I proposed as a starting point, is a sacred cow. I originally contemplated posting instead, that the current formula of firepower to be changed to a sum of not only weapons but also of defence. Of course the problem with that would be to decide what numerical values should be attributed to shields and armour, whereas in the now suggested formula it would not matter in relation to weapons. Starting points are not perfect, Plant. They are in fact the very definition of imperfect or they wouldn't be a starting point at all but rather an ending point. If you'd been willing to accept as much from the start then we could've saved a whole lot of time. As for whether you sum attack and defense together or only the defense, you're still implicitly assigning weights to factors. In fact, no matter how you design the formula, you will by definition be assigning weights to factors. Currently the formula weights firepower at 1 and everything else at 0. You'd make firepower 0.5 and the abstract value of the sum of armor and shield 0.5. Those are in fact weights. Is an even split optimal? How about 45/55? How about 40/60? Those are weights too, weights that you've rejected for no clear reason whatsoever. Your formula is to maximise the objective function of the biggest weapon effect value multiplied with the biggest defense effect. The defense effect is the sum of ratings for shields and armor. I originally thought shields would win this but it turns out that the ultimate shield has an effect of 320 for size 10 while the ultimate armor has an effect of 40 for size 1. What this means is that at the end of the tech tree, using your formula, a ship with 100 size dedicated to shields is decidedly less threatening than a shield with 100 size dedicated to UltraDense Armor. You want a numerical example? Suppose we wished to use 200 size for combat components. To make that "balanced", we'd have to go with 100 size for attack and 100 for defense. For attack, let's go with 15 superflowing Titan Beams and 2 devastating Impact Assault Blasters. That's 100 size with a sum firepower of 479. On the defensive side, if we go with 10 exponential Meridian shields, we end up at a total defense effect of 3200. Sqrt ( 479 * 3200 ) = ~1238. On the other hand, if we go with UltraDense Armor and use 100 size on that, we'd have 4000 defense effect. Sqrt ( 464 * 4000 ) = ~1384. Would you skip shields entirely on end game ships? Of course not, because armor can in fact leak damage against anything while shields only leak against certain types of weapons.

Tophat1815 -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/21/2013 4:06:01 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Darkspire quote: ORIGINAL: Icemania Holy Walls of Text! Has anybody got an Executive Summary? Big ship slow ... small ship fast ... pew pew pew ... bang boom ... Darkspire I always appreciate what you bring to the table sir! [:D]

Icemania -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/21/2013 7:24:05 AM)
It's tough to read when it's not in Hex.

Darkspire -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/21/2013 7:26:04 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Tophat1812 quote: ORIGINAL: Darkspire quote: ORIGINAL: Icemania Holy Walls of Text! Has anybody got an Executive Summary? Big ship slow ... small ship fast ... pew pew pew ... bang boom ... Darkspire I always appreciate what you bring to the table sir! [:D] It's good to know my experienced observations are appreciated [sm=00000289.gif]

Plant -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/21/2013 2:33:03 PM)
I have to ask Darkspire, before you recieved help on your "decimal" problem, how did you count your change in a shop or read a bank statement?

Tophat1815 -> RE: Firepower, why and how it can be changed (12/21/2013 6:14:58 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Plant I have to ask Darkspire, before you recieved help on your "decimal" problem, how did you count your change in a shop or read a bank statement? He has "people" for that actually. And he does pay fairly well,with a health plan. Would you care for an application? [;)]

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