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Reflection on automatic retreating / repairing

 
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Reflection on automatic retreating / repairing - 1/10/2013 7:35:19 AM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline 		I've had one issue that has been bothering me for a while. It's in regard to the way the game automatically handles retreating and repairing.

There seems to be two issues with regards to this.

The first one is that the retreating settings in the ship design seem to not incorporate the addition of rail guns into the game. The problem occurs when one is facing opponents with rail guns. If the rail guns do any component damage to the ship, the ship will instantly go into retreat mode unless the ship is set to "never retreat." As rail guns easily do damage to 1 component in a battle, your ships will go into retreat mode even though they are still in good shape to continue fighting (since rail guns don't do lots of damage). I've gotten into the habit of just changing all my ships to never retreat just to counter this even though I would prefer having my ships retreat at 20% shield damage.

Possible solution: Incorporate armor damage into the retreat options (e.g. retreat when shields / armor are at 50%)

The second problem is that, when ships are damaged in the least bit, they automatically go into repair mode and will leave their patrols to repair. Again, this mainly is an issue when dealing with rail guns, especially pirates with rail guns. Patrolling ships will not protect their stations as, once they get 1 component damage, they will leave and go repair even though they are still in good shape to stick around patrolling.

Possible solutions: Ships do not go into auto-repair mode until ~4 components are damaged.
User can set this amount in the ship design.
User has an ingame button to enable / disable the auto-repair.

Finally, on another similar issue. I really hope to see armor being stronger and also an armor bar in the next expansion!

What are other player's thoughts on these?
Post #: 1
RE: Reflection on automatic retreating / repairing - 1/10/2013 5:10:45 PM   
Kayoz


Posts: 1516
Joined: 12/20/2010
From: Timbuktu
Status: offline 		A couple of minor points:

1. If damage is caused by wildlife, then traditional auto-retreat should apply. Modified retreat threshold should only apply when caused by non-wildlife opponents.
2. Retreat when shields/armour thresholds should be set independently - so the player can alter each. Some players favour heavy armour designs, and separating the thresholds will allow them to modify their ships' responses accordingly.
3. I'm not sure about the idea of continuing patrolling if damage is "minor". I think that's hard to account for in the algorithms, as what's "minor" is very much dependent on the design of the ship. I think a simpler method would be to add armour self-repair (albeit slow) to the "damage control" tree, so that even the lowest tech level can have your patrolling ships with the component being able to self-repair what is "trivial" damage. That would allow you to keep patrolling - and so long as there isn't an immediate follow-up attack, the ships will have recovered without forcing you to manually reassign them to patrol duties.
4. I don't think that armour needs to be made "stronger" - it would nerf rail-guns to uselessness. They're already a pain to use effectively (short range makes them easy kite). Personally, I'd vote for simply removing rail-guns. Shields that can stop light (phasers/blasters) and not able to stop a hyper-velocity slug just doesn't make any sort of sense to me.

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(in reply to MartialDoctor)
Post #: 2
RE: Reflection on automatic retreating / repairing - 1/10/2013 10:08:07 PM   
Bingeling

 

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		I miss some armor intelligence too.

In general I think that "forced repair"/flee always should ignore 1 armor damage, and in general I would want to ignore damage to less than 10 or 20% of armor.

Wildlife is a bit special, I agree. I would like to have a special wildlife AI option "Stay clear, let the user handle this". The AI is usually better at feeding them than fighting them.

(in reply to Kayoz)
Post #: 3
RE: Reflection on automatic retreating / repairing - 1/11/2013 1:42:31 AM   
feelotraveller


Posts: 1040
Joined: 9/12/2011
Status: offline 		In addition to the above suggestions I would like to see the timing of the damage check changed.  In my experience the damage check is made at the worst possible time.  (I manually control my fleets and never give 'patrol' orders and the like so your mileage may vary.)

It is typical for me in the early game to pick up some armour damage to wildlife.  If major I order the repair myself but often it is only a piece or two of armour damaged and it is a long way home.  My ships do not get an autorepair order at the end of this battle.  However this is when I think the main check for damage should take place and as others have suggested have some sort of threshold - heading home 4 sectors to repair one piece of armour out of 20 odd is usually not a good idea.  Perhaps another check is still needed for large amounts of damage during the battle itself, or if critical components are hit.

My ships do check for damage when next entering combat.  I can fly them damaged around the galaxy for ages but as soon as that fully shielded ship with 1 in 20 armour damage jumps in with the fleet to eat the pirate base for breakfast the crew decide that they want to go home. 

(in reply to Bingeling)
Post #: 4
RE: Reflection on automatic retreating / repairing - 1/11/2013 11:39:57 AM   
Bingeling

 

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		What is typical for me to pick up early, is minor armor damage from pirate rail guns. Which gives all kinds of issues in the line that you describe.

(in reply to feelotraveller)
Post #: 5
RE: Reflection on automatic retreating / repairing - 1/14/2013 8:59:55 PM   
Kull


Posts: 2625
Joined: 7/3/2007
From: El Paso, TX
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

If the rail guns do any component damage to the ship, the ship will instantly go into retreat mode unless the ship is set to "never retreat." As rail guns easily do damage to 1 component in a battle, your ships will go into retreat mode even though they are still in good shape to continue fighting (since rail guns don't do lots of damage).


Agreed - it's insane to see Capital ships "fleeing" from enemy frigates. I'll have to set my options to "never retreat", as otherwise it's impossible to have a battle without micromanaging all the ships with a few points of rail gun damage. As you note, this should be easy to fix, but it's really annoying at the moment.

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(in reply to MartialDoctor)
Post #: 6
RE: Reflection on automatic retreating / repairing - 1/15/2013 10:56:59 AM   
Gareth_Bryne


Posts: 232
Joined: 5/16/2010
Status: offline 		Kayoz, Frank Herberts' Dune has a very interesting interaction between shield and lasguns, which, although cardinally different is no less then strange. It may have something to do with (pseudo)scientific principles of the universe you are eexploring

That said, the "rail gun flee" effect no doubt needs some attention...

_____________________________

"Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts," - Londo Mollari

(in reply to Kull)
Post #: 7
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