0024339: Defensive Mode for player fleets. The ability to designate your own warden fleets to reduce repetitive defense micro. - Arcen Idea Tracker (Bugs and Features)

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0024339	AI War 2	Suggestion		Jan 16, 2021 8:30 pm	Jan 18, 2021 10:54 am

Reporter	Tim_Fragmagnet	Assigned To	Chris_McElligottPark
Severity	feature
Status	closed	Resolution	not fixable
Product Version	Beta 2.716 The Great Balance Curve

Summary	0024339: Defensive Mode for player fleets. The ability to designate your own warden fleets to reduce repetitive defense micro.
Description	The ability to designate fleets as defensive fleets. These fleets would automatically move themselves around player owned territory to defend it against incoming waves and to preemptively defend known high strength gaps. If an AI wave is incoming, a defensive fleet will automatically move to that planet to defend it as long as it doesn't have to cross any major AI defenses or over 2 AI planets regardless of what is left on them. (they're defensive fleets, not offensive guards that run over to your lone planet in AI territory to defend it) If there are multiple known incoming attacks, a defensive fleet will move to defend the planet that has the highest gap of Allied strength to Estimated AI attack strength. If there are multiple known incoming attacks and multiple defensive fleets, they will spread out to defend multiple planets unless an attack on one planet is going to be so large that the gap between allied and AI strength would still be large even with one of the defensive fleets there. Defensive fleets will also automatically move to planets that currently have enemies attacking them if no other planets need tending to. (perhaps the AI could use this to punish the player for overly relying on defensive fleets by sending a small force to one planet and once the defensive fleet moves to attack, send a large one to attack elsewhere) If there are no known incoming attacks, and no enemies currently on any of your planets. Your defensive fleets will instead station themselves on planets with high neighboring AI threat or, more importantly, planets with high gaps between allied strength and neighboring AI threat. (hope you have logistics command stations, the defensive fleets can't reliably act on intel they don't have) Essentially, a fleet mode to reduce the micro of "incoming wave" >select fleet you use to defend >send to planet It also further encourages the use of logistics stations to provide intel on neighboring AI planets.
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CRCGamer Jan 16, 2021 10:41 pm developer ~0060321	This is a rabbit hole and as such probably cannot be pursued anytime soon with how much work is already going to be needed on the current major beta balance pass and finishing work on the upcoming DLCs. Consider that once any of this is done you'd also be asking for automation of crippled defensive fleets retreating for repairs, automatic load and unload for faster travel, and so on. All of which have a CPU overhead and a lot of things that can go wrong. I don't see this being a feasible ask with all the other stuff people would want tacked on anytime soon.

Chthonic One Jan 17, 2021 5:24 am reporter ~0060322	Where does it send the fleet when there are 2 waves or multiple attacks in different locations? When loading transports, how will it know when units are blocked because of forcefields in the way? This is a constant problem that Chris has talked about and why he can't queue up load orders. What if units loading into transports are held by tractor beams or are in different systems? Can they break out of the tractor beams? Should the transport wait for them? The AI has an automated defensive fleet because it has to have one. The player doesn't have one because they player shouldn't have one. Automating it is not trivial, and will never work out well for the player with a limited number of resources. The AI doesn't have that problem.

ArnaudB Jan 17, 2021 7:11 am manager ~0060323	This is technically what the civilian industry mod do, in a primitive fashion. A better method could certainly be employed to reduce the performance drain (likely fireteam for that minor faction), but otherwise the demand for "warden" fleet should be considered fulfilled by the mod. If such a feature would be considered, it'd involved improving civilian industry rather than starting from scratch, as that sounds far more time-efficient given the Dev's already extensive workload.

Chris_McElligottPark Jan 18, 2021 10:54 am administrator ~0060325	This is the sort of thing that someone could mod in if they wanted to, but it's way out of scope of the sort of thing I'd develop in-house. To me personally, it also feels like the game is then playing itself for you. The choice of where to place your fleets, and when, is the core strategic decision that you make during actual warfare in this game. I'm very much in favor of removal of micromanagement, but this is just regular gameplay, in my opinion. I am glad that mods like civilian industries do exist, though, as they take a less hands-on approach to the same sort of problem. They're essentially using their own forces to help guard, but you still have full agency over your own forces. That way you have a partner, rather than someone who is playing for you. Hopefully we see some more mods along those lines.

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
Jan 16, 2021 8:30 pm	Tim_Fragmagnet	New Issue
Jan 16, 2021 10:41 pm	CRCGamer	Note Added: 0060321
Jan 17, 2021 5:24 am	Chthonic One	Note Added: 0060322
Jan 17, 2021 7:11 am	ArnaudB	Note Added: 0060323
Jan 18, 2021 10:54 am	Chris_McElligottPark	Assigned To	=> Chris_McElligottPark
Jan 18, 2021 10:54 am	Chris_McElligottPark	Status	new => closed
Jan 18, 2021 10:54 am	Chris_McElligottPark	Resolution	open => not fixable
Jan 18, 2021 10:54 am	Chris_McElligottPark	Note Added: 0060325