detection and ships on starlanes

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Ophiuchus
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detection and ships on starlanes

#1 Post by Ophiuchus »

split from here: https://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtop ... 25#p108725

before ships did not have detection when being on starlanes, now they do
wobbly wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 3:48 am
LienRag wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 3:36 pm
wobbly wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 1:27 pm

I'm liking the change, now that I've gotten used to it.
Much less surprise or dancing around enemy scouts, so it's probably less tactical that what we used to have.
I don't particularly agree. It opens up some tactical options and closes some tactical options off. In my opinion its neither more or less tactical then the old system. There was some discussion on the multiplayer server between Ophiuchus and I about reducing scout ranges in general. I'm not sure how long the chat log is saved for, but its still there at the moment.
note i was talking mostly about reducing detection levels while being on a lane. but yes, the high detection levels in the late mid game are rather boring.

or generally with detection, do not increase the radius with the given amount, but the area covered.

i was looking for something like to use something like 6*sqrt(detection) if you are on a starlane. but maybe adding 36% detection will generally increase the radius 6%. doubling detection when stationary would then give

could spin it the other way: always lower detection levels. just if the ship is stationary it gets a boost.
only downside implementing this in FOCS is the typical one turn effect delay (resulting in keeping high detection the first turn you jump). but thats very FO. not sure if this leads to much micro.

e.g. climbing to double the detection level (e.g. 0 turns 100%, 1 turn 150%, 2 turns 175%, 3 turns 188%, 4 turns 194%, 5 turns 197%, >=6 turns 200%). or fewer turns (e.g. 0 turns 100%, 1 turn 150%, 2 turns 180%, 3 turns 200%) to reach max detection and then give sitrep about it. scanning policy maybe would ramp up faster.

When increasing area instead of radius, bonus could be a linear compared to original area based (every step +40% area; radius 0 turns 100%, 1 turn 118%, 2 turns 127%, 3 turns 134%, 4 turns 141%)).

also detection could be shaped differently when on a starlane - e.g. only looking forward, that helps slipping through enemy detection.
else, if you have e.g. 60 detection, a ship going in one direction with 60 speed will cover a distance of 120uu . although wobbly indicated he had a 55 detection ship missing a 75 speed ship going the other direction on a 90uu lane, so maybe this reasoning is wrong.
If the other ship is 70uu away and has a speed of 80uu/turn it will be able to evade detection (first turn it is 10uu too far in the front, second turn it is 10uu too far in the back). So it has to do with the combined speed of both ships, probably there is a hole if (speed1+speed2 > 2*detection). if we keep detection on starlanes, i think holes are important.
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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#2 Post by Oberlus »

I'd go for the simplest solution.
Add a condition for ships to divide by two detection range when not in system, or a condition to the detection ship parts to not apply their effect or only half of it when not in system.
Or maybe add a new effect for ships that apply -50 detection rangr while on-fly.

I wouldn't mind suffering the 1-turn delay thingy if it is the tax to not having more complex systems. The 1-turn delay still bugs me, in general, for unlocks, fleet effects afteer movement, etc., (and I'd love to see that "issue" fixed). If this changes we are talking would make our scouts to have less range upon arrival to a system and have to stay put for a turn to regain maximum detection range, I could live with that, can even make sense: you need some time to readjust sensors after jumping out of warp space, or something like that.

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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#3 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:04 am I'd go for the simplest solution.
Add a condition for ships to divide by two detection range when not in system, or a condition to the detection ship parts to not apply their effect or only half of it when not in system.
i think that the applying detection linear to the detection radius is the root of evil here. note currently, you increase the detected area by the square of a detection boost (squared multiplier to be exact). 10 detection -> 100 uu^2; 10+10 detection -> 400 uu^2 (300 difference to 10 detection); 20+10 detection -> 900 uu^2 (500 difference to 20 detection).
so the payoffs are actually increasing the further you are (that is what i mean by evil).

Increasing area is probably intuitively understandable for a human being. It is not so good for calculating radius exactly, but the visibility bubbles should do the job. So with 10 detection lets say 100uu^2; 10+10 detection -> 200uu^2 (100 difference to 10 detection); 20+10 detection -> 300uu^2 (100 difference to 20 detection). The GUI could still show the radius.

Anyway if we switch to area based or not, we should balance against ship speeds to keep it tactical. And that starts with 60/75 and in the end has a range of 40-200 (guesstimate; without field effects).
Oberlus wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:04 am I wouldn't mind suffering the 1-turn delay thingy if it is the tax to not having more complex systems. .... If this changes we are talking would make our scouts to have less range upon arrival to a system and have to stay put for a turn to regain maximum detection range, I could live with that, can even make sense: you need some time to readjust sensors after jumping out of warp space, or something like that.
yes. that would be the result. similar to flux stealth effect (just a boost instead of malus on arrival).

agreed that the slow detection buildup is probably not very interesting/not worth it. so lets say scrap the multi-turn increase and just have two different ranges.
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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#4 Post by wobbly »

Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 11:02 pm thank geoff for the rule option
Oberlus wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 3:32 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 2:45 pm you cant make it fit. like you cant fit linear growth with exponential growth.
I don't understand. I just made it fit. I guess I didn't get your point?
my point was that we not only have detection tech, but also have species detection (-9, 0, +25, +50) and for some reason i thought ship hull detection varies (e.g. symbiotic) also in early game. there are some later hulls in organic hull with +50 and +75 bonus. and also other detection effects, policies etc.

and the root of the sum of values is very different from the sum of the root of values, that is what cant be fit, because it depends on the combination of detection sources.

but maybe its enough if to scale the terms for acceptable results. it is probably more important to balance detection vs ship speed.

i just thought it is easier to change the detection effect in the backend in a single place instead of changing all SetDetection effects in FOCS, and get better scaling results with it as well.
I like the simplicity of +x detection. The player can easily work out what detection range they'll get before researching the tech and without doing any complicated calculations. If we can find numbers that are a good enough balance, my preference is to keep it simple.

Also if it helps turn down the bonus for the hull. The base symbiot sees as far as a scout. They are already good without this, it doesn't need to be optical scanner range. This extra detection is part of the reason I never really use static hulls.

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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#5 Post by wobbly »

If symbiots were around +15 (compared to base hulls) and protoplasmics +30 you'd probably start seeing the green hulls more often.

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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#6 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 4:40 am If symbiots were around +15 (compared to base hulls) and protoplasmics +30 you'd probably start seeing the green hulls more often.
looks good to me
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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#7 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 4:03 am The player can easily work out what detection range they'll get before researching the tech and without doing any complicated calculations.
valid point, there is no current way of giving such a feedback to a player.

A preview ability for having tech would be nice regardless but that is a complete story in itself. So agreed, I will speak of area detection no more until we have a tech preview ability.

And then maybe it still does not make sense, because the interrelation with speed is probably more important then not having explosive area detection growth.

oberlus, why don't you post your suggestions here. They will be lost like any topic in the slow game discussions.
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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#8 Post by LienRag »

Apparently Geoff wants to make this a game rule to be selected before starting the game ? Probably the best solution imho...
wobbly wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 3:48 am
LienRag wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 3:36 pm [Much less surprise or dancing around enemy scouts, so it's probably less tactical that what we used to have.
I don't particularly agree. It opens up some tactical options and closes some tactical options off. In my opinion its neither more or less tactical then the old system.
It does, but the result is not equivalent in terms of tactical finesse.
Having ships always see what's in the arrival Starlane makes Monsters mostly irrelevant, and nearly forbids "dancing" which is both very fun and interesting tactically. Since it's not obvious to predict the position of ships in the starlane and their detection ranges it makes stealthy crossing a chore rather than a simple (and fun and rewarding) game of bluff.

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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#9 Post by Ophiuchus »

LienRag wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 4:28 pm Apparently Geoff wants to make this a game rule to be selected before starting the game ? Probably the best solution imho...
he already did (but not merged i think).

i would rather like it be float rule, so we can scale down visibility while being on the star lane in the game settings. 0.0 would be old style and 1.0 current one, what i would like to try is 0.5
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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#10 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 6:27 pm what i would like to try is 0.5
Maybe, needs testing.
Very difficult to predict the result of a crossing the way the UI works, though, so difficult to integrate in a strategy.

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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#11 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 6:37 pm Very difficult to predict the result of a crossing the way the UI works, though, so difficult to integrate in a strategy.
Just half the radius of the bubbles...

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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#12 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:06 pm
LienRag wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 6:37 pm Very difficult to predict the result of a crossing the way the UI works, though, so difficult to integrate in a strategy.
Just half the radius of the bubbles...
will be the same kind of difficult as with 1.0 I think. and as we playtested that I'd say complexity is fine
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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#13 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:09 pm will be the same kind of difficult as with 1.0 I think. and as we playtested that I'd say complexity is fine
Really ? I have absolutely no idea before a crossing what the result will be (I can have guestimates, but not anything more, and guestimates are certainly not good enough when a whole strategy relies on it).

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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#14 Post by Oberlus »

Yeah, it still lacks the visibility bubbles.

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Re: detection and ships on starlanes

#15 Post by LienRag »

It's not only the visibility bubble, it's being able to understand where the ships will be in the starlane and adjust the distance of the detection range to understand who will see what.

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