Combat - Set Fleet Strategic Objective

[Amaroq81]

I'd like to see more strategic control of my fleet's behavior in combat -- once my ships are "in combat", they're gung-ho committed to a single strategic objective: destroy the enemy. My only strategic options are "Let them fight" or "Trigger Emergency FTL retreat".

I'd like more strategic control, where Fleet engagement, rather than "Aggressive, "Passive", "Scaredy-cat", is set in terms of Strategic objective, along the lines of:

• Engage (current) - Strategic objective: destroy all enemy fleets in system. Movement priority in combat as current; out of combat, to attack nearest enemy Fleet / Station. Targeting prioritizes targets of opportunity as current..
• Advance on (Fleet / Station A) - Strategic objective: engage and destroy Fleet A. Prioritizes movement towards A over movement relative to other enemy fleets. Targeting prioritizes Fleet A when in range, and targets of opportunity if not in range of A. Useful for bypassing slow or fixed units, civilian stations, etc, to achieve a strategic objective.
• Protect (Fleet / Station P) - Strategic objective: protect Fleet P. Prioritizes movement to interpose self between enemy units and P. Targeting prioritizes targets capable of bringing their own guns to bear vs Fleet P, then those close to in-range of P, and targets of opportunity if no enemy are close to P.
• Hold position with (Fleet / Station F) - Strategic objective: engage the enemy as a cohesive unit with Fleet F. Movement priority is to remain "under the guns" of Fleet F, preferring positions where the enemy cannot fire at this fleet without F being able to fire at it. Targeting prioritizes targets of opportunity which come under the gun range of F.
• Move to position (X, Y) - Strategic objective: reach the specified location. Movement prioritized to X,Y. Targeting prioritizes targets of opportunity within weapons range. Useful for bypassing slow or fixed units, civilian stations, etc, to achieve a strategic objective. Useful for disengaging (with fast ships), or luring a pursuing enemy fleet towards your choice of location.
• Retreat beyond Hyperlimit - Strategic objective: orderly retreat to the Hyperlimit, where we can re-form to either FTL transfer, wait for reinforcements, etc. Movement prioritized to escape enemy gun range (scatter), then to move beyond the hyperlimit, then to reform into a cohesive formation. Targeting prioritizes targets of opportunity (pursuers).
  
• FTL Withdrawl - Strategic objective: orderly, safe FTL retreat from the system. Movement and targeting prioritized as per Retreat beyond Hyperlimit. While it is "safe" to do so, ships will re-form the fleet beyond the Hyperlimit. When an enemy fleet is able to reach 1.2 * N range from the re-formed fleet in the time it takes the fleet to FTL windup, at that point the re-formed fleet will use a normal FTL transfer to escape the system. Ships remaining in the system will attempt to use Emergency FTL at that point.
• Emergency FTL - Strategic objective: immediate FTL retreat from the system. Movement and targeting as per Retreat beyond Hyperlimit. Any unit which can standard-FTL-transfer with no possibility of being engaged uses standard FTL transfer. Units within the hyperlimit, currently engaged by the enemy, or capable of being engaged by the enemy before makeing a standard FTL transfer take the 25% hit point risk.

That gives me a wide range of battles to fight:

The Enemy's Gate is Down, where I bullrush past fixed defenses to hit a specific target (hello, core AI, I'm looking at you).

The Final Stand, where, facing superior opposition, my units stay under the guns of fixed defenses near my home spaceport in a desperate defense

The Killdeer, where a weaker fleet plays the wounded killdeer, kiting the enemy units in before a second fleet arrives to close a pincer trap

An Orderly Retreat where my faster fleet is able to disengage, retreat to the hyperlimit, and warp out.

Re-posted from comments of *TheCrawlingChaos932*'s Combat Change: Tactical Withdrawl post. Original thread at: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ge-tactical-withdrawals.951583/#post-21481105

Edit: Wed Jan 29, re-worded the Strategic Objectives to make it clear that I meant "Fleet or Station" where I had previously used "Unit", which people could interpret as a tactical single-ship objective within a combat.

 

[jose2534]

I would only do one change to the battle system and that would be the change to "prioritize fire on "fleet X" or "fleet B" or "spaceport/battlestation""; I just loose a war because of my entire fleet shooting down a "mining station" instead of the enemy "spaceport" (it was an early game war and I was like “Really? Just… really? Who was in charge of those ships?!”)

Your ideas are good, but I feel like the “Advance” and “protect” aren’t going to work with this game, it's too micro. That’s why I think is better the “prioritize”, because that is not necessarily “don’t shoot the other things” or "only shoot the enemy battleship".

 

[Amaroq81]

I'm certainly not saying "don't shoot the other things" - that's why the second sentence of "Advance on..." is "Fire at targets of opportunity if not in range of A". I'm imaginging it as being exactly what you wanted for your scenario: your fleet entered enemy space; you could see that it is superior to any force in the system. You could set to "Advance on : Spaceport". Even if their path takes them close to that mining station, they'd exchange some shots while in range, but continue on to the Spaceport.

The problem with simplifying to "prioritize" is, once your ships enter range of the mining station, they will prioritize their movement to attack the mining station, rather than continue on to engage the spaceport.

 

[jose2534]

I now see clearer what you want, and we almost want the same: to be able to pick so our fleet centers the fire mostly in the enemy fleet A or fleet B or spaceport C. But my idea doesn't imply a movement toward something, engaging everything in the way but fliing by it, even if its shoot for time to time (the system of the games doesn't allow for that, to move and leave an enemy out of range without breaking in retreat [It might do, but It will require a significant restructuring of the code and a lot of things more]). That's why I want to “prioritize fire” between the enemy "engaged" fleets, spaceport or defense stations, because I found it more reasonable inside game engine logic.

 

[Amaroq81]

I can certainly see that logic!

My logic came from:
1. Mechanically, fleets detect combat via logic similar to: For Allied Fleet A and enemy Fleet X, find the longest-ranged weapon in either fleet; call that range N. When any ship from A is within 1.2 * N distance of any ship from X: consider fleets to be in battle; switch both fleets from cruising speed to combat speed; engage target-selection mode for all ships; engage combat-movement mode for all ships (essentially, try to keep chosen range from chosen target ship).

My suggestion stems from splitting those things out:
2. Combat could end when all surviving ships from A are further than 1.2 * N distance of all surviving ships from X.
3. Target-selection for ships could be separated from combat-movement focus for ships

In real combat, the strategic objective is rarely "destroy the entirety of the enemy" - so I focused on the strategic objectives I'd wished I could assign to my ships, or could see a critical need for.

 

[freepskov]

I have an idea of how to achieve this kind of control without making crazy micro mandatory.

I want to have fleets divided into a small number of Battle Groups, each of which has a clear role that determines ship behavior (instead of having the combat computer do it).

• A Screen group of small ships will interpose itself between the main fleet and the enemy.
  
  
• A Main Battle Group will basically be the bombardment style.
  
  
• A Carrier group will launch strike craft and actively stay out of range of enemy weapons.
  
  
• A Tactical Strike Group will have a target type priority and swarm targets of that type
  
  
• An Escort Group will protect a battle group, civilian ship, space station, or transport fleet.

I think that having a fleet have a primary target fleet or space station selected through right clicking in a battle is fair, but any more is too much micro. One thing about this game that I really like is that it is a strategy game, not a tactics game. I want to see smart tactics simulated, but I don't want to be obligated to spend all my time executing tactics.

 

[Amaroq81]

That works - providing some input into Tactics without going into micro-managing the entire battle. I think most players would prefer to have the ability to have the same ship able to serve different tactical roles rather than having the tactical role controlled by a computer.

Maybe I should re-word my original post slightly to make it clear that when I say "Unit" I mean "Per Fleet, relative to a Fleet-equivalent-entity", not "a specific ship" -- I certainly don't want to tactically manage at all, that's why I'm focusing these as Strategic Objectives.

Edit: Updated OP as suggested above.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

It would suffice with "focus fire on", and orders on what stance, or rather what distance to keep. I like long range weapons, and really don't understand why my long range battleships would willingly go closer to ships that are clearly close range. Stay away if possible, and fire at them without getting shot. (Now, not saying that this should be EASY though, but this is where focusing on science, ie engines, could be a bonus - suddenly a small but advanced fleet could actually stand a chance against a large but primitive fleet).

 

[AylexMorhaven]

I think the quick and easy fix for alot of this is to make it so if your fleet has an admiral you can issue the fleet movement orders.

Fleet will stay engaged until outside of enemy weapons range. Each unit will still have tactical movement but it will conform to the overall strategic movement of the fleet.

 

[Ventessel]

While we might argue over the specifics, a system of this type would be very helpful and exponentially increase the variety of situations that can emerge in space combat.