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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0021589AI War 2SuggestionOct 30, 2019 9:31 am
ReporterAsteroid Assigned ToBadgerBadger  
Severityminor 
Status resolvedResolutionfixed 
Product Version0.886 Zombie Homebodies 
Fixed in Version1.005 Answering Your Top Requests 
Summary0021589: Eyes should be activated based on number of fleets or total strength, not ships
DescriptionEyes' rules for activation (set number of ships) contradict the emphasis on fleets and away from individual ships. Does it really make sense to count ships and bring partial fleets in on purpose, especially with the UI not giving you an efficient way of tracking ships you left in some other system? I think Eye activation should be based on the number of fleets you bring, (EDIT: or on total strength, see comment below) or completely reworked.
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related to 0021945 resolvedBadgerBadger Eyes, HissyFit Transformer, and Alarm Posts should use Fleet Power threshholds. 

Activities

ZeusAlmighty

Sep 6, 2019 7:00 pm

manager   ~0052897

I disagree and this would have unintended consequences. For instance, minor factions (such as dark spire) can activate the eye and these aren't fleet-bound.

With the ability to swap fleet compositions around and the ability to pause construction of ships, there are sufficient work-arounds for the concerns you raised

RocketAssistedPuffin

Sep 6, 2019 7:07 pm

reporter   ~0052899

Perhaps worth noting that if done, this would make Eyes not function versus factions or other AIs in Civil War, as they don't use Fleets currently (outside of drone fleets, which might have odd interactions unless exempted?)

I'm unsure what to think of it personally. On one hand it makes some sense and there's the old AIP increase with too many Fleets code that I suppose is useful here. On the other, my thoughts go somewhat to merely swapping the best units I have, highest mark, etc, onto a Fleet, throwing it in and FRDing without a worry, as the Eye will never trigger...opposed to the current way, where blindly FRDing would be eventually painful (at least, intended to be...) as you clear out the Guards.

So...I suppose I'm kind of in favour of the current way, even if basing it on Fleets has merit.

One thing that occurred to me just now is, with the current one you can kind of cheese the Eye by hopping in and out of Transports, but can't do it vs a Fleet based Eye. On the other hand, Fleet based Eyes would mean trying to path Transports through it to something else will be potentially awkward (having to split them up, in case it's a Raid Eye or something like that, where the units being protected by Transports doesn't stop it).

BadgerBadger

Sep 6, 2019 7:26 pm

manager   ~0052902

What if there were some Eye-like units that triggered off of many fleets, and others that triggered off of the number of ships? Does that sounds interesting? Too confusing?

Asteroid

Sep 7, 2019 3:06 pm

reporter   ~0052909

TBH I really don't like eyes at the moment, I feel that having to selectively evacuate units as the battle progresses so you always have lower unit count than the AI is fiddly and just not interesting gameplay. Do you guys actually enjoy them? The fleets idea was an attempt at redeeming eyes but you make a good point that it would change the mechanic significantly, and would pose implementation problems with non-fleet-based factions (though I thought everyone would get fleets eventually?).

If we do want to stick close to the original implementation a "total strength"-based idea might work better then? Here it is below, but I've also submitted ideas for a complete redesign here: https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=21596

 The new Strength calculation has taken the place of displaying unit count for each system. The eye could activate based on the total enemy strength present compared to the strength is has in the sector. One huge advantage compared to just checking unit count is that it doesn't treat a Citadel or Ark or a Frigate as equivalent to one half-dead zombie.

UI-wise, fleets and sub-fleets already display their strengths so the player is used to checking it out. A total strength display for the current selection could also be added, and would be useful on its own for players to evaluate whether they can face a threat with what they have selected.

RocketAssistedPuffin

Sep 7, 2019 3:45 pm

reporter   ~0052914

I like them. When a game gets to the point of being somewhat...brain-dead to play for me I lose interest.

I don't think everyone was meant to get fleets. I think I read it's technically possible, but I don't know why they would - they don't have any benefits to gain really.

I don't like the Strength method either. I admit first though that I don't really like the whole...comparing Strengths thing, as to me that misses a lot of details. To me you'd just be moving units out of the planet anyway, just like before, just based on strength instead of unit count, so I'm not sure what...changes much, though the bit about the Citadel/Frigate is a fair one.

ZeusAlmighty

Sep 8, 2019 11:09 pm

manager   ~0052936

My personal beef with eyes is that the *only* way to deal with them is to kill all the Guardposts. This takes a concerted effort and can be a big opportunity cost

TBH I think a hack would be a nice remedy--"Blind eye" so that it is (temporarily) inactive to encourage blitzkrieg attack on the guardposts before it reactivates

Chris_McElligottPark

Sep 9, 2019 9:55 am

administrator   ~0052941

Everyone was definitely not meant to get fleets, but we could split these so that they work two different ways -- one way for the "anybody except humans" way, and then another way for humans.

Personally I agree with Asteroid that these are annoying and put the focus in the wrong place when it comes to how humans deal with them. I think that should be fleet-based, and maybe force just one or two fleets, max, or else these spew out lots of scary stuff.

BUT we could say that if there's only a flagship in transport mode, and it hasn't fired on anything on that planet at the moment, then it doesn't count. I could put that in. if we really want to. That would solve the whole "wow things got scary as transports passed through." Though frankly I think that contained ships should thematically count for the eye, anyway, so maybe we skip this bit? I'm not positive if contained units and stacked units count properly at the moment, but they really should to avoid various cheese.

For players passing through one of these planets, having a planet like this that is more dangerous seems A-OK to me. It's something new to avoid and work around, and they aren't THAT common.

For the other part of how they react to players, making it so that it's based on fleets really does feel like it emphasizes the right thing, which is "bring a customized appropriate strike force with you."

RocketAssistedPuffin

Sep 9, 2019 11:00 am

reporter   ~0052950

Neither of the Eye types currently seeded are a threat to Flagships (Plasma and Ion). Two of the ones I have prepared but commented out (Raid and Magnifier) would be, so for now I imagine that's okay.

BadgerBadger

Oct 29, 2019 12:27 am

manager   ~0054090

I have a fix in my sandbox for testing tomorrow, to make Eyes trigger off of # of fleets on a planet instead of number of ships. This is set by a "transformed when ounumbered by X fleets = X" xml field. So if we want some eyes (or some other sort of structure) to have the original Eye behaviour then we just don't use this field.

BadgerBadger

Oct 29, 2019 1:01 pm

manager   ~0054116

I've added the ability for eyes to trigger off of the number of fleets on a planet.

Asteroid

Oct 29, 2019 9:52 pm

reporter   ~0054134

Note that now this has a bad interaction with the custom fleets. You're encouraged to split off some ships to be able to micro them but if you do so you'll be penalized against eyes.

I'm still hoping for some kind of way to split off units to a different hotkey without removing them from the fleet. But otherwise the strength-based proposal makes more sense now.

BadgerBadger

Oct 29, 2019 9:54 pm

manager   ~0054136

Eyes are intended to force you to take a planet out differently from how you would usually do so. That's all. If you can use your normal strategies against an Eye then that's not good.

Asteroid

Oct 30, 2019 12:24 am

reporter   ~0054143

My understanding of Chris' design for this is that you're supposed to pay more attention to what you're doing, and to hand-pick a small strikeforce for the task. I think we agree that this is the goal?

Is it a good thing to penalize the player for picking a task force that includes some units that should be microed? They can still do it manually like before the introduction of custom fleets, it just involves a lot of pausing and won't be fun in coop.

Perhaps the way the player would like to approach the situation "differently" is by microing some units for once, actually, instead of fleetballing. So the interaction with the custom fleets mechanic really seems bad in that regard.

Asteroid

Oct 30, 2019 9:31 am

reporter   ~0054151

Basing it on the number of fleet lines not flagships might be an idea, now that I think of it. I achieves the same thing while letting you play freely with fleets as control groups. What we might wanna count is actually "every fleet line or flagship except unarmed transports" so you can't bring citadels, support factories or officer flagships for free.

As a side thought, eyes could be the only unit that "see" right through your transports and detect the fleet lines in there, complicating your life when deep striking. Thematically appropriate!

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Sep 6, 2019 6:01 pm Asteroid New Issue
Sep 6, 2019 7:00 pm ZeusAlmighty Note Added: 0052897
Sep 6, 2019 7:07 pm RocketAssistedPuffin Note Added: 0052899
Sep 6, 2019 7:26 pm BadgerBadger Note Added: 0052902
Sep 7, 2019 3:06 pm Asteroid Note Added: 0052909
Sep 7, 2019 3:45 pm RocketAssistedPuffin Note Added: 0052914
Sep 8, 2019 5:00 am Asteroid Summary Eyes should be activated based on number of fleets, not ships => Eyes should be activated based on number of fleets or total strength, not ships
Sep 8, 2019 5:00 am Asteroid Description Updated
Sep 8, 2019 11:09 pm ZeusAlmighty Note Added: 0052936
Sep 9, 2019 12:07 am Asteroid Category Gameplay Issue => Suggestion
Sep 9, 2019 9:55 am Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0052941
Sep 9, 2019 11:00 am RocketAssistedPuffin Note Added: 0052950
Oct 26, 2019 10:27 am RocketAssistedPuffin Relationship added related to 0021945
Oct 29, 2019 12:23 am BadgerBadger Assigned To => BadgerBadger
Oct 29, 2019 12:23 am BadgerBadger Status new => assigned
Oct 29, 2019 12:27 am BadgerBadger Note Added: 0054090
Oct 29, 2019 1:01 pm BadgerBadger Status assigned => resolved
Oct 29, 2019 1:01 pm BadgerBadger Resolution open => fixed
Oct 29, 2019 1:01 pm BadgerBadger Fixed in Version => 1.005 Answering Your Top Requests
Oct 29, 2019 1:01 pm BadgerBadger Note Added: 0054116
Oct 29, 2019 9:52 pm Asteroid Note Added: 0054134
Oct 29, 2019 9:54 pm BadgerBadger Note Added: 0054136
Oct 30, 2019 12:24 am Asteroid Note Added: 0054143
Oct 30, 2019 9:31 am Asteroid Note Added: 0054151