Stealth for Supply Lines

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LienRag
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Stealth for Supply Lines

#1 Post by LienRag »

Would it be difficult to have a Stealth value associated with Supply lines ?
Of course it needs backend code change, but would it be a lot of change ?
That would improve the ability of stealthy empires to stay stealthy without using the "no supply" policy...

For the UI, just put black lines on the map (I mean the same as when there is no one supplying the starlanes). Since supply can be cut by monsters or enemy ships, black lines would show that something is there, but not what.
Also if we have "space pirates" stealthy native species which would cut supply around them in the same way, there would be no way to distinguish both without investing in detection.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

LienRag wrote: Fri Mar 12, 2021 1:47 pmWould it be difficult to have a Stealth value associated with Supply lines ?
Of course it needs backend code change, but would it be a lot of change ?
Yes and yes.

More so it's a substantial design change that hasn't been thought through or explained sufficiently.

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#3 Post by Ophiuchus »

Main design problems arise because of relativistic effects - stealth depends on the observer. You could start digging up the old discussions and link here.
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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#4 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Mar 12, 2021 2:21 pm Main design problems arise because of relativistic effects - stealth depends on the observer. You could start digging up the old discussions and link here.
I don't get it, it's not for Supply calculation but only for their display in the Galaxy Map ?

I found a few topics indeed, are there others¹ ?

I parsed quickly through them and they seem to grasp with difficult problems of calculating overlapping supply as they want to modify the existing mechanism.

I am just proposing to add a "stealth" value to Supply lines, that doesn't need any modification of the basic mechanism (yes, it would need another variable in the backend code, but no refactoring of the mechanism itself).

Geoff, here you write
Geoff the Medio wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2013 12:51 pm
em3 wrote:Maybe the supply lines of an empire should have stealth assigned...
The thought of the complexity and confusion that would likely lead to makes me say "ugh...".
but you never explain why ?




¹ I do like your proposal here, by the by, but it's not relevant in the current discussion.

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#5 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Fri Mar 12, 2021 3:14 pm I parsed quickly through them
It's tons of it. If you don't want to force others take the time to read all that stuff and then copy to you what's in there, you should read them.

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#6 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Mar 12, 2021 3:34 pm
LienRag wrote: Fri Mar 12, 2021 3:14 pm I parsed quickly through them
It's tons of it. If you don't want to force others take the time to read all that stuff and then copy to you what's in there, you should read them.
Indeed it is. Making a search for "Supply" brings more than four thousand results.
I can understand the call for bringers of suggestions to do their homework first, but if we expect newcomers to read four thousand posts before talking about any subject, that means the project will never get new blood and slowly die of old age...

Searching for supply only in title texts brings fewer results and I read all the titles and opened the ones that seemed relevant.
Then I read the first posts (barring the parts that were obviously discussing unrelated things) and kept parsing through the answers for bits that would discuss similar ideas than my initial one.

I would call that good enough to ensure that I most probably didn't miss an important discussion with "Supply" in its title.
If there are discussions about stealthy supply in topics that doesn't bear the word "supply" in their title, please provide me with the good keywords, as I don't intend to read 4000 + posts and I don't think I should be expected to.

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#7 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:15 pm I can understand the call for bringers of suggestions to do their homework first, but if we expect newcomers to read four thousand posts before talking about any subject, that means the project will never get new blood and slowly die of old age...
There are tons of suggestions of newcomers (including mine) that just repeat what was already suggested 1, 5 or 12 years ago, so that reading them is just a waste of time for active developers.

Anyways, in this case it seems you did the work (nice). The think is overlapping and/or hidden supply lanes add much complexity than what it is desired. Overlapping was implemented and discarded after testing, that sounds quite definitive. In the threads you link there are some explanations on that or references to older discussion. I'm sorry if it is not explained better in there, but I can't really improve that explanation, because I'm mostly like you (I got here later and didn't read it all), but I intuitively understand and agree with the "too complex" issue.

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#8 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:36 pm The think is overlapping and/or hidden supply lanes add much complexity than what it is desired.

Overlapping, yes. And indeed they explain why it's a bad idea.
I didn't find any argument (nor real discussion) against stealthy but not overlapping supply.
This is why I pointed that my suggestion does not bring overlapping lines, the backend mechanism is just the same as what exists now, but the difference would be in what is shown.
(actually my question was about one backend point : is it possible - and not too hard - to have Supply lines have a stealth value ?)

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#9 Post by Oberlus »

Well, you already got an answer to your actual question: it is possible but hard to have stealth values associated to supply on starlanes.
The next question is or was "why?", isn't it. Maybe Geoff can answer it, but I think he doesn't have the time for that. Maybe you want to develop more your idea, show pros and cons, by yourself.
Is it necessary to have stealth supply for stealth empires? Maybe yes, but you didn't defend the idea. It makes sense then that others don't defend their opposition to the idea.

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#10 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I'm not strongly opposed to there being a game mechanic where supply lines can be of unknown origin. The mechanics of propagation would work as now, with every system being supplied by a single source / empire, and competing supply propagations bumping into and blocking eachother. The difference would just be that some players wouldn't be told which, if any, empire is generating supply lines or supplying some systems. This wouldn't be much more complicated to implement than things are now, as just the info transfer to players would be changed, and not the propagation mechanics in general.

I am still strongly opposed to overlapping supply networks from multiple source empires, though.

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#11 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 3:26 pm The mechanics of propagation would work as now, with every system being supplied by a single source / empire, and competing supply propagations bumping into and blocking eachother. The difference would just be that some players wouldn't be told which, if any, empire is generating supply lines or supplying some systems.
So the supply lines of the hidden empire would be shown as "unknown owner" color (or maybe a wrong empire color)?
Or the supply lines could be not plotted at all?
The former makes little sense to me. The idea is to not let the enemy empire know there is any supply to block, so empires should not see it.

Either way, other empires would know there is hidden supply when their own supply bumps into the hidden one.

Conceptually, I think it makes sense that hidden supply doesn't happen within other empire's supply (i.e. no overlapping whatsoever).

Supply lines could get the same stealth value than current planetary stealth techs, or get dedicated techs if that brings in interesting research choices.

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#12 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:27 pmSo the supply lines of the hidden empire would be shown as "unknown owner" color (or maybe a wrong empire color)?
Or the supply lines could be not plotted at all?
Having a "Neutral / Unknown" supply line colour would be the easiest to implement, particularly without making the display confusing. I don't want the situation where there's no indication why supply lines aren't propagating into a system that otherwise appears like it should allow such propgation.
The idea is to not let the enemy empire know there is any supply to block, so empires should not see it.

Either way, other empires would know there is hidden supply when their own supply bumps into the hidden one.
If empires will know either way, what is the logic for not showing it clearly?

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#13 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:48 pm
The idea is to not let the enemy empire know there is any supply to block, so empires should not see it.

Either way, other empires would know there is hidden supply when their own supply bumps into the hidden one.
If empires will know either way, what is the logic for not showing it clearly?
Either way it is discovered when supply bumps. But when supply does not bump, unknown-color way lets the other empires know there is a empre there (even before seeing any system colonized by the hidden empire) while no-color way doesn't.

If the point is to let empires stay unnoticed, I don't see the point of having hidden-but-visible supply. In that case, you get mostly the same with the way we have now.
I like the way it is now: if you really want to stay unseen, go no supply route.

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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#14 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:00 pm
Geoff the Medio wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:48 pm
The idea is to not let the enemy empire know there is any supply to block, so empires should not see it.

Either way, other empires would know there is hidden supply when their own supply bumps into the hidden one.
If empires will know either way, what is the logic for not showing it clearly?
Either way it is discovered when supply bumps. But when supply does not bump, unknown-color way lets the other empires know there is a empre there (even before seeing any system colonized by the hidden empire) while no-color way doesn't.
I think that could work: show it clearly but only if it bumps (enemy supply stopping yours). Also make it look the same if a hidden military vessel stops your supply somewhere. This makes it a lot harder to determine exact locations, reasons and supply values. That could be worth including.
Oberlus wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:00 pm If the point is to let empires stay unnoticed, I don't see the point of having hidden-but-visible supply. In that case, you get mostly the same with the way we have now.
I like the way it is now: if you really want to stay unseen, go no supply route.
Also +1

Not sure if I suggested this. Should stockpile focus lower supply?
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Re: Stealth for Supply Lines

#15 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:46 pm I think that could work: show it clearly but only if it bumps (enemy supply stopping yours). Also make it look the same if a hidden military vessel stops your supply somewhere. This makes it a lot harder to determine exact locations, reasons and supply values. That could be worth including.
Absolutely. I know when there is a hidden ship interupting my supply only because of the empty spot if it is within my supply. If it is in the border between different supplies, that can pass unnoticed.
But how? When a not-hidden warship interrupts supply, there is no color, and it makes sense to not color that spot with the warship's empire color because it has no supply there. The same should apply to hidden warships.

Maybe, draw some kind of termination at the end of supply reach, with two different shapes, one for "end of supply"/"bumping into another empire's supply", and another for "supply interrupted by hidden armed ships"/"supply interrupted by hidden supply".

Or remove supply stealth on starlanes that bump with other empire's supply (if you don't let them pass, they know you are there).

Not sure if I suggested this. Should stockpile focus lower supply?
I don't think so:
- Stockpile can have legit uses for supply-dependent empires.
- Stockpile focus is seldom used (empires going for distributed supply do get stockpile techs that make it unnecessary to set the focus), so the change would have little effect.
- You can set stockpile focus on any planet, so you would set it on the planets for which the supply malus is irrelevant, again making the change irrelevant.

Policies that increases stockpile and/or stealth could/should reduce supply, though.

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