Revisiting Stealth & Detection

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eleazar
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Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#1 Post by eleazar »

The current stealth & detection system was somewhat ambitious, and IIRC tried to do some cool things that 4x games don't usually do. Unfortunately there are various ramification that have been gradually uncovered that confuse or complicate gameplay.

I believe this is the first of a several linked areas that need to be resolved so that constructive progress on diplomacy can occur.
  • Issues
    * Tends to require continual re-sweeping of your empire and surroundings with high detection ships to make sure there's not a hidden fleet, or planet somewhere.
    * * Against stealthy opponents for optimal play would require recording where you've scanned, when most recently, and at what power.

    * Cannot translate into a meaningful detection range GUI. We have "Detection range circles" which are simple and misleading, or the fiddly, guess-based "Galaxy map stealth threshold slider."

    * Requires some sort of additional level of fleet commands: weather ships should hide or fight/blockade.

    * Leads to annoying, inconclusive "battles" where one side hunts for ships that don't want to be found.
    ** How do you start a battle with utterly undetected ships in your system, when if you might detect them if you manage to maneuver your ships close enough?
I believe what we need is to take a step back and change the foundation of stealth and detection rather than figure out work-around for these issues.

I see two alternate systems that can resolve the issues. These systems could be combined to some degree, but for simplicity, i'll describe them separately. The following describes the galaxy map.

A) Zones of Certainty & Uncertainty
The area every detector scans is divided into two parts:
1) an inner circle within which all things are detected.
2) an outer circle where things might be detected depending on how stealthy they are and how close to the inner circle of certain detection.
3) outside both circles nothing is detected, unless it is universally visible.

An object with a stealth of zero would be detected on the edge of the outer circle. More stealthy objects would need to be progressivly closer to the inner circle to be detected. Something with a stealth of 100 would be detected only on the edge of the inner circle.

No new stats are needed and the same FO-script can probably be used, with new underlying mechanics. The radius of the outer circle is determined by the detector strength. The inner circle is a standardized fraction of the other's radius-- perhaps between 1/5th & 1/3rd.

Primary consequence: you will detect all things in the same system ( galaxy map distance: 0) as your detector. However, you may not have all information on the objects, depending on if and how espionage is implemented. For instance detecting an enemy colony wouldn't necessarily tell you it's focus, or population. Espionage might be required for that.


B) Progressive Detection
Detectors have one stat, which determines the range at which things can be detected. No object inside the detection area is totally invisible. No object outside is visible. However, detecting an object doesn't mean you know everything about it. For instance, a fleet of highly stealthed ships, might hide the number and type of ships or even which empire owns them. As the ships draw closer to the detector, more details are revealed, until at the same location, full disclosure is achieved. Of course if an espionage system is implemented, there might be information about a fleet or colony that can only be gained via espionage, not normal detectors.

It is possible that in some circumstance all that is revealed is the class of object, i.e. "huge planet", or "non-allied fleet". But at minimum you'll know something is there and you can act on it or against it. You know where to bring your more powerful scanners to bear.


C) Exceptions and Qualifications to Both the Above
1) Espionage
If Espionage is implemented, then there could be a weaponless class of spy ship that might be totally invisible, if the stealth tech is better than the detection tech. These might perform spy missions or simply provide vision. Since they are weaponless they would not cause ambiguous or complicated situations figuring out if and when they should reveal themselves and effect blockades or battles.

2) Universally Visible
Certain rare, very important objects might be visible at any distance, no matter how low detection is. For instance a precursor invasion.

3) Space Combat
I would prefer that detection in space combat is keep similar to the galaxy map, but i'm not primarily concerned with it at this time. Most of the issues are specific to the galaxy map. I originally objected to the idea that you might be able to detect a fleet on the galaxy map, but not necessarily be able to see it in combat. But gameplay should always trump even plausibility. Besides you can easily technobabble that the high energy required to jump makes any ships detectable when they leave or enter a system.

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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#2 Post by Skaro »

Nice idea, I'd include a tech or building that can detect incoming objects from a starlane. It would force some strategic placing of these buildings on your borders. You wouldn't know what number or types of ships are inbound, but rather a alert that something just dropped out of FTL. A enemy fleet could move in and out of your system without such a security system.

Also ,the bigger the ship, the higher the chance of detection, a tiny scoutship would be able to slip by far more easily then a big warship. You could say that more energy would be required to keep them hidden.

After the incoming ship alert you can start sweeping the system with the sensor ranges you mentioned before.


Slightly OT, I don't think that spies should be limited to insertion via spyship. They should be able hide themselves in more common ships like trade ships. Species with many trade relations would be easier to infiltrate if you take this route. Isolationists would be far harder.

--edit

We could steal a idea from Star Trek that multiple ships can set up a detection web of sorts that decloaks any ships that pass through it. Though it would mean that you'd have to spread out your ships.
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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#3 Post by eleazar »

Skaro wrote:Nice idea, I'd include a tech or building that can detect incoming objects from a starlane.
That wouldn't solve any of the issues i'm trying to resolve. "A" & "B" both always give you knowledge of any objects in the same system as one of your detectors (unless possibly weaponless spy probes). Detection sometimes doesn't solve the GUI, control, and blockade problems.

Skaro wrote:Also ,the bigger the ship, the higher the chance of detection, a tiny scoutship would be able to slip by far more easily then a big warship. You could say that more energy would be required to keep them hidden.
Yes, i forgot to mention that. Both "A" & "B" have more latitude to make smaller ships more stealthy, without making them totally invisible to early detection tech. And quite conveniently, whatever "natural" stealth bonus small ships get becomes more significant as detection tech improves. I.E. a +15 stealth would translate to a greater advantage in UU (universe units) over large ships against a more powerful detector.

But don't think of stealth like Klingon technomagical invisibility that can be turned on and off-- that doesn't map well to the mechanics. It's more like the Stealth Fighter, or a soldier in camouflage. The better the camouflage, and the smaller the object, the closer you need to be to spot it. But if you are right next to it, you don't see right through it.

Skaro wrote:Slightly OT, I don't think that spies should be limited to insertion via spyship. They should be able hide themselves in more common ships like trade ships. Species with many trade relations would be easier to infiltrate if you take this route. Isolationists would be far harder.
Entirely off topic actually, not that i disagree with the idea.

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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#4 Post by Skaro »

Right, I kinda misread your original post, I assumed it was on the tactical level.

I'm cooking something up myself, but I'm really freaking tired from work, so I'll probably post it tomorrow.
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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#5 Post by em3 »

If this is implemented, it will be practically impossible to amass a "cloaked" invasion fleet around someone's system - whether he has a scout ship there or not, or how well the respective camouflage and detection technologies are developed, correct? :|
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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#6 Post by eleazar »

em3 wrote:If this is implemented, it will be practically impossible to amass a "cloaked" invasion fleet around someone's system - whether he has a scout ship there or not, or how well the respective camouflage and detection technologies are developed, correct? :|
Colonies have detectors that work just like the detectors on ships, though the power varies according to tech.

With "A" & "B" you can't be in the same system with an enemy colony or ship without them knowing it. Weather you can be undetected in the next system over depends on the length of the starlane and the enemies power of detection and your stealth. Generally speaking it would be a sneak attacks would tend to be revealed sooner, but stealth can still buy you valuable turns when you are far enough out to be undetected, and thus the enemy is not marshaling his forces to oppose you.

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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#7 Post by Bigjoe5 »

eleazar wrote:* Tends to require continual re-sweeping of your empire and surroundings with high detection ships to make sure there's not a hidden fleet, or planet somewhere.
Planet, no. We already addressed that issue by giving players basic visibility of planets in the same system.

As for fleets, that's another matter which I suppose needs to be evaluated. However, if planets typically have detection as advanced as the best available detection ship, it makes it much easier, since systems that need to be scanned are reduced to systems in which you don't have any planets. Most likely it will end up that every player will want to leave a scout in unowned systems in his territory. This will just be another part of defending territory and maintaining strong security, like leaving military ships in important or particularly vulnerable systems. More on this later...
eleazar wrote:* * Against stealthy opponents for optimal play would require recording where you've scanned, when most recently, and at what power.
I don't think it would be overly difficult to put this information in the UI. You may say it's cluttering the interface, but the stealth and detection system we have is a paradigm shift which puts stealth and detection at high importance - important enough to put information about it on the system sidepanel along with the rest of the relevant information about the system. This is basically only three pieces of information per system: Current visibility of the system, maximum visibility of the system your empire has ever had, and the turn (or how long ago) that max visibility was last attained. Compared to how many other military and resource meters there are, this is a pretty reasonable number of numbers to show for an essential game component. Plus, the player doesn't even need to think about it for systems in which he has planets, because he knows he constantly has his maximum visibility of those systems.

The player will almost never need something like a historical graph indicating what visibility his empire has had of the system every turn (though I can see cases where it might be useful - I wouldn't want such a thing to be used very often, but it should be included anyway, IMO, for rare situations, probably called via a button on the sidepanel).
eleazar wrote:* Cannot translate into a meaningful detection range GUI. We have "Detection range circles" which are simple and misleading, or the fiddly, guess-based "Galaxy map stealth threshold slider."
I don't know if I'm alone on this or not, but I really liked the detection gradient of which you made a mock-up a while back, and found it very easy to use.
eleazar wrote:* Requires some sort of additional level of fleet commands: weather ships should hide or fight/blockade.
No - players just give ships combat or non-combat missions (either player-controlled or auto-resolved) as normal, and their stealth is modified by their current position or activity on the tactical map (ideally).
eleazar wrote:* Leads to annoying, inconclusive "battles" where one side hunts for ships that don't want to be found.
Auto-resolve. If there's enough player interaction required to suppose that auto-resolution isn't a viable option, there's no reason to suppose that such battles won't/can't be fun.
eleazar wrote:** How do you start a battle with utterly undetected ships in your system, when if you might detect them if you manage to maneuver your ships close enough?
This never happens. Galaxy-map and tactical-map stealth and detection are the same. Since galaxy-map distance is 0 when two objects are in the same system, galaxy-map visibility will always be greater than or equal to the tactical map visibility.
eleazar wrote:A) Zones of Certainty & Uncertainty
The area every detector scans is divided into two parts:
1) an inner circle within which all things are detected.
2) an outer circle where things might be detected depending on how stealthy they are and how close to the inner circle of certain detection.
3) outside both circles nothing is detected, unless it is universally visible.
This seems to be more or less what we have now, except with an added "inner circle" of detection. I take it your motivation for this is to have a relatively wide range of space in which you definitely know what's there, to avoid having to keep microing scouts to check all systems right?

eleazar wrote:B) Progressive Detection
Detectors have one stat, which determines the range at which things can be detected. No object inside the detection area is totally invisible. No object outside is visible. However, detecting an object doesn't mean you know everything about it. For instance, a fleet of highly stealthed ships, might hide the number and type of ships or even which empire owns them. As the ships draw closer to the detector, more details are revealed, until at the same location, full disclosure is achieved. Of course if an espionage system is implemented, there might be information about a fleet or colony that can only be gained via espionage, not normal detectors.

It is possible that in some circumstance all that is revealed is the class of object, i.e. "huge planet", or "non-allied fleet". But at minimum you'll know something is there and you can act on it or against it. You know where to bring your more powerful scanners to bear.
I don't think this is significantly less complicated than the current system. In particular, it adds a lot more visibility thresholds, while watering down the value of stealth.

Back to the issue of micromanaging scouts - why should scouts be micro? After all, stealth and detection are important right? If scanners are significantly more expensive than weaponry, then scouts will be rare, valuable assets, and stationing them at vital points in the empire and protecting them will be more of a strategic choice than a necessary chore. Plus, this allows there to be smaller, very valuable ships, which breaks away from the "bigger ships are always better and more expensive, and there's really no good use for small ships" stereotype, which is good and interesting.

I don't think we need to revise the stealth and detection system - I think we just need to see it as something of a paradigm shift and design the other aspects of the game accordingly, getting rid of some unnecessary assumptions that don't fit in with it ("scouts are cheap", for example).
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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#8 Post by em3 »

I like the idea of partial visibility. Although this indeed complicates things more.
There should be some clear thresholds defined, what is visible and what not.
Something along the lines:
  1. Presence (we know if something is out there or not - ships (or fleets), planets,...)
  2. Quantity (we know the number and sizes of objects - hull size and planet size)
  3. Details (we know as much as can virtually be detected - health, systems, planet type, ...)
Any more levels of detectability could become un-KISS, I think.
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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#9 Post by Krikkitone »

Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:* Leads to annoying, inconclusive "battles" where one side hunts for ships that don't want to be found.
Auto-resolve. If there's enough player interaction required to suppose that auto-resolution isn't a viable option, there's no reason to suppose that such battles won't/can't be fun.

Here I think Auto-resolve is a bad suggestion (unless you mean a 'pre-battle' auto-resolve that Always happens)...
In general, there needs to be the option to engage or not. You should Only be offered that option if at least one of your ships/planets is in range to detect and fire on an enemy ship/planet. So if you decide to do a tactical battle, your ships Must start out in a position where they can fire on the enemy fleet (or where the enemy fleet can fire on them if that is farther out)
[if the enemy fleet is fleeing/doesn't want to engage, and is actually capable of doing so ie they are faster than you and can detect your ships at > firing range, then there is no battle]

Basically the tactical map should only be involved if there are meaningful tactical decisions to be made. (How you stay away from an enemy that you can see+outrun is not a meaningful decision, how you hide from someone that can't see you without you seeing them first isn't either)

For meaningful tactical decisions, I need to
1. want AND be able to target something of my enemy's
OR
2. have an enemy that wants AND is able to target me

If there is an enemy fleet in the system on the galaxy map, then I should be able to target it unless
1. they are too fast
or
2. they are too stealth

If #2, I don't see why they are on the galaxy map in the first place (I can see #1... although I'm not quite sure how to limit that.. perhaps the fact that they are 'out of supply')
Bigjoe5 wrote: Back to the issue of micromanaging scouts - why should scouts be micro? After all, stealth and detection are important right? If scanners are significantly more expensive than weaponry, then scouts will be rare, valuable assets, and stationing them at vital points in the empire and protecting them will be more of a strategic choice than a necessary chore. Plus, this allows there to be smaller, very valuable ships, which breaks away from the "bigger ships are always better and more expensive, and there's really no good use for small ships" stereotype, which is good and interesting.

I don't think we need to revise the stealth and detection system - I think we just need to see it as something of a paradigm shift and design the other aspects of the game accordingly, getting rid of some unnecessary assumptions that don't fit in with it ("scouts are cheap", for example).

Regarding 'expensive scouts'. If there are going to be expensive scouts (with good detection), then there should Also be 'cheap scouts'... ie you build a cheap scout to find low stealth things in systems (ie planets, starlanes, non stealthed fleets), and you build expensive scouts to find high stealth things in systems.
Last edited by Krikkitone on Thu Sep 29, 2011 10:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#10 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Krikkitone wrote:Here I think Auto-resolve is a bad suggestion (unless you mean a 'pre-battle' auto-resolve that Always happens)...
In general, there needs to be the option to engage or not. You should only be offered that option if at least one of your ships/planets is in range to detect and fire on an enemy ship/planet. So if you decide to do a tactical battle, your ships Must start out in a position where they can fire on the enemy fleet (or where the enemy fleet can fire on them if that is farther out)
[if the enemy fleet is fleeing/doesn't want to engage, and is actually capable of doing so ie they are faster than you and can detect your ships at > firing range, then there is no battle]
What you're suggesting is basically having auto-resolve for the part where you're looking for the ships, and calling the player into battle when his ships are in range to fire. If the enemy ships want to avoid combat that badly, why will blowing them up be any more interesting or demanding than looking for them in the first place?

I agree though, that we should try to make those kinds of battles interesting if we can...
Krikkitone wrote:...'cheap scouts'...
Those are called regular ships.
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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#11 Post by Krikkitone »

Bigjoe5 wrote:
Krikkitone wrote:...'cheap scouts'...
Those are called regular ships.
Except that type of scout is just an engine+hull
And it might be worthwhile to actually have a scoutship instead of just a ship with an empty weapon slot.
(either through a dedicated hull type or a "range" part that can go in a weapon slot that gives them batter range)

Also I see no reason why an "expensive scout" would need to be small.. Why wouldn't a doomstar sized hull be needed for all that detection equipment. (It Could be small, I agree with that, but it might be interesting to have a "scanner ship" that is the size of a small moon)


Bigjoe5 wrote: What you're suggesting is basically having auto-resolve for the part where you're looking for the ships, and calling the player into battle when his ships are in range to fire. If the enemy ships want to avoid combat that badly, why will blowing them up be any more interesting or demanding than looking for them in the first place?
The issues are
1. With stealthed ships, you might not know there is something to search for, until the system alerts you
2. Also with stealthed ships you might not ever be able to find them

If the "potentially pointless" part (ie getting into weapons range of the enemy) was always auto-resolved, then you would know if alerted you could do something (even if that something was get yourself creamed by a stealthed invasion fleet)

These are also issues with very fast ships, ones that can stay out of weapons range of any of your ships (even though you see them)

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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#12 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Krikkitone wrote:Except that type of scout is just an engine+hull
Yeah, but why would you do that, when regular ships do the job just as well - and that "job" is done as soon as it enters a system, since all the planets will become basically visible.
Krikkitone wrote:And it might be worthwhile to actually have a scoutship instead of just a ship with an empty weapon slot.
(either through a dedicated hull type or a "range" part that can go in a weapon slot that gives them batter range)
Yes, that was my point. It would be so worthwhile that the player would be willing to spend a lot of PP building one.
Krikkitone wrote:Also I see no reason why an "expensive scout" would need to be small.. Why wouldn't a doomstar sized hull be needed for all that detection equipment. (It Could be small, I agree with that, but it might be interesting to have a "scanner ship" that is the size of a small moon)
Well it would never need to be small, and I'm sure situations will crop up where it's better to make it big, but in general i think we should encourage the player to use small ships as well as big ones.

Krikkitone wrote:1. With stealthed ships, you might not know there is something to search for, until the system alerts you
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, if you can see it on the tactical map, ever, you will always be able to see it on the galaxy map if you're in the same system.
Krikkitone wrote:2. Also with stealthed ships you might not ever be able to find them
In which case, by the same token, you wouldn't know they were there in the first place.
Krikkitone wrote:If the "potentially pointless" part (ie getting into weapons range of the enemy) was always auto-resolved, then you would know if alerted you could do something (even if that something was get yourself creamed by a stealthed invasion fleet)
First, it doesn't need to be auto-resolved. It's the player's choice. And since he knows what enemy ships he's looking for in the system (due to having galaxy map visibility of them), he can easily make that choice based on the relative power of fleets.

Second, the player can't choose to auto-resolve part of a combat - it's all or nothing, unless the player is notified of a change in galaxy map visibility. i.e. if the enemy fleet comes out of an asteroid belt, this causes a change in galaxy map visibility which may lead to the player knowing about ships he didn't know about before, which would give the player the option to take manual control of the combat.

Third, if you're looking for something on the tactical map, you always know what it is, because you have galaxy map visibility of it. You won't ever accidentally stumble across a giant death fleet in your system - it would have to explicitly reveal itself by firing or moving out of a stealthy location, as in my example above.
Krikkitone wrote:These are also issues with very fast ships, ones that can stay out of weapons range of any of your ships (even though you see them)
Like with stealthy ships, the player can choose to auto-resolve combat if it's going to be that kind of combat.
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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#13 Post by Krikkitone »

Bigjoe5 wrote:As I mentioned earlier in this thread, if you can see it on the tactical map, ever, you will always be able to see it on the galaxy map if you're in the same system.
I think that is part of the problem... seeing something on the galaxy map without seeing it on the tactical map Currently.

That seems to make the concept of Tactical stealth pointless (ie I know its still in the System, but to target it, I have to wander around, and I'm not even sure where.)

Now if Stealth was Purely Galactic... ie since I see it on the galaxy map, I know where it is on the tactical map and can go target it (ie tactical map range had no effect on stealth/detection although stealth might affect targeting range). Then it would be sensible.

So ships (in both galaxy+tactical map) are either
invisible, and the position of detectors in the system would not affect their visibility in any way
OR
visible, and the position of detectors in the system would only affect the ability of weapons to target them. (or the availability of details on them)
Bigjoe5 wrote:
Krikkitone wrote:2. Also with stealthed ships you might not ever be able to find them
In which case, by the same token, you wouldn't know they were there in the first place.
So they have to stay still and wait for you to find them... what if they can see you coming and get out of your detection range of them?
(unless there is no tactical stealth ie visibility on galaxy map= visibility on tactical map)
Bigjoe5 wrote:
Krikkitone wrote:These are also issues with very fast ships, ones that can stay out of weapons range of any of your ships (even though you see them)
Like with stealthy ships, the player can choose to auto-resolve combat if it's going to be that kind of combat.
Would auto-resolve know the fast player wanted to stay out of weapons range at the cost of not being able to attack themselves?

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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#14 Post by eleazar »

Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:* Tends to require continual re-sweeping of your empire and surroundings with high detection ships to make sure there's not a hidden fleet, or planet somewhere.
Planet, no. We already addressed that issue by giving players basic visibility of planets in the same system.
Planets, colonies whatever. I was under the impression that was sort of a hot-fix and the question of invisible planets and or colonies was not dead. If not please ignore my references to "planets".

Bigjoe5 wrote:...Most likely it will end up that every player will want to leave a scout in unowned systems in his territory. This will just be another part of defending territory and maintaining strong security, like leaving military ships in important or particularly vulnerable systems.
So what if they do? Under the current system you'll never know if the enemy snuck through your pickets at some turn when their stealth was slightly higher than your detection. So continual resweeping would be called for whenever detection tech is upgraded.
Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:* * Against stealthy opponents for optimal play would require recording where you've scanned, when most recently, and at what power.
I don't think it would be overly difficult to put this information in the UI. You may say it's cluttering the interface, but the stealth and detection system we have is a paradigm shift which puts stealth and detection at high importance - important enough to put information about it on the system sidepanel along with the rest of the relevant information about the system. This is basically only three pieces of information per system: Current visibility of the system, maximum visibility of the system your empire has ever had, and the turn (or how long ago) that max visibility was last attained. Compared to how many other military and resource meters there are, this is a pretty reasonable number of numbers to show for an essential game component...

The player will almost never need something like a historical graph indicating what visibility his empire has had of the system every turn (though I can see cases where it might be useful - I wouldn't want such a thing to be used very often, but it should be included anyway, IMO, for rare situations...
I'm not interested in comparing the number of meters and readouts that one part of the game has to another part to make sure each has a "fair share". The important comparison is between my proposal which requires no additional numbers and graphs, and the current system that does. There's a lot of game let to add, and we would be wise not to add to the sidebar for little cause.

Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:* Cannot translate into a meaningful detection range GUI. We have "Detection range circles" which are simple and misleading, or the fiddly, guess-based "Galaxy map stealth threshold slider."
I don't know if I'm alone on this or not, but I really liked the detection gradient of which you made a mock-up a while back, and found it very easy to use.
If that gradient was implemented on the current system it still has an outside edge which only tells you "here's where i can detect stars", and a gradual denser color that doesn't absolutely correspond to detector strength, or your ability to detect arbitrarily stealthed ships. The visibility of different empire colors varies greatly as they fall off to full transparency and as they mix with the background. Also you didn't "find it easy to use" because you didn't actually use it in a real game against stealthed enemy ships trying to figure out where they might be.

Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:* Requires some sort of additional level of fleet commands: weather ships should hide or fight/blockade.
No - players just give ships combat or non-combat missions (either player-controlled or auto-resolved) as normal, and their stealth is modified by their current position or activity on the tactical map (ideally).
No not "as normal". No such non-combat missions like "hide" exist outside your plans to make the current stealth system work. I think you followed the line of reasoning: "how can we make this stealth system work?" rather well, but ultimately that was the wrong line to follow because it led to a design that is excessively fiddly and involved.

With what I've proposed there's no need for that. Outside of battle you would give ships absolutely no instructions/ missions other than starlane travel, and those rare, limited actions like "colonize" and "invade".

Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:** How do you start a battle with utterly undetected ships in your system, when if you might detect them if you manage to maneuver your ships close enough?
This never happens. Galaxy-map and tactical-map stealth and detection are the same. Since galaxy-map distance is 0 when two objects are in the same system, galaxy-map visibility will always be greater than or equal to the tactical map visibility.
Umm, you are right.
Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:A) Zones of Certainty & Uncertainty
This seems to be more or less what we have now, except with an added "inner circle" of detection. I take it your motivation for this is to have a relatively wide range of space in which you definitely know what's there, to avoid having to keep microing scouts to check all systems right?
No, my main motivation is just to have some place at all where you definitely know what's there. The current system does not provide this.

Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:B) Progressive Detection
I don't think this is significantly less complicated than the current system. In particular, it adds a lot more visibility thresholds, while watering down the value of stealth.
I prefer "A", but the complications that this avoids are the need for system stealth numbers/graphs, non-combat "missions" and so on.

Bigjoe5 wrote:Back to the issue of micromanaging scouts - why should scouts be micro? After all, stealth and detection are important right? If scanners are significantly more expensive than weaponry, then scouts will be rare, valuable assets, and stationing them at vital points in the empire and protecting them will be more of a strategic choice than a necessary chore. Plus, this allows there to be smaller, very valuable ships, which breaks away from the "bigger ships are always better and more expensive, and there's really no good use for small ships" stereotype, which is good and interesting.
I noticed you are arguing against me at different points by making mutually exclusive assumptions about the content. Granted shaping the content either way is possible, but not both at once. Towards the top. "You'll park scouts in all your empty systems." & "Planet detection will normally be the same as ship detection", while at the bottom you describe rare, expensive super-detector ships.

The system i've proposed makes no assumptions about weather detector ships are cheap or expensive, or weather small ships are useless or not. I'm not really sure what you're and Krikk's extended discussion of scouts has to do with anything. If we want to make super-expensive detector ship content, then it would be very useful with my stealth system for snooping on your enemies and "friends".

Anyway with cheap scouts and the current system there's micro because you need to blanket your territory with scouts and swap them out with new ones whenever your detector tech improves. With expensive super-scouts there's micro because you need to keep sweeping your territory with them, because they can't be everywhere at once. But i consider this point less important than the others. A lot depends on exactly how the content is designed.

em3 wrote:There should be some clear thresholds defined, what is visible and what not.
Something along the lines:
Presence (we know if something is out there or not - ships (or fleets), planets,...)
Quantity (we know the number and sizes of objects - hull size and planet size)
Details (we know as much as can virtually be detected - health, systems, planet type, ...)
That breakdown sounds reasonable.

krikk wrote:Here I think Auto-resolve is a bad suggestion (unless you mean a 'pre-battle' auto-resolve that Always happens)...
In general, there needs to be the option to engage or not. You should Only be offered that option if at least one of your ships/planets is in range to detect and fire on an enemy ship/planet.
Ships have no position (except "in system") until a battle is joined, and players place and arrange their ships. You can argue that it should be different, but don't assume mechanics contrary to the design document with out reason and explanation.

BigJoe5 wrote:Second, the player can't choose to auto-resolve part of a combat - it's all or nothing, unless the player is notified of a change in galaxy map visibility. i.e. if the enemy fleet comes out of an asteroid belt, this causes a change in galaxy map visibility which may lead to the player knowing about ships he didn't know about before, which would give the player the option to take manual control of the combat.
As above, an enemy fleet can't have a specific location "in asteroid belt" until battle has been joined. Also this is a turn based game, not an RTS. I don't see the galaxy map changing due to something that happened in a battle before the battle is resolved.

krikk wrote:And it might be worthwhile to actually have a scoutship instead of just a ship with an empty weapon slot.
(either through a dedicated hull type or a "range" part that can go in a weapon slot that gives them batter range)
I agree, that's why i implemented something like that several weeks ago. ;) Pre-made scout designs now have an extended fuel tank and better scanners. They are also cheaper, faster and weaker than Mark 1 battleships.

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Krikkitone
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Re: Revisiting Stealth & Detection

#15 Post by Krikkitone »

eleazar wrote:Ships have no position (except "in system") until a battle is joined, and players place and arrange their ships. You can argue that it should be different, but don't assume mechanics contrary to the design document with out reason and explanation.
that's effectively what the "pre-battle auto-resolve" would be... the limits as to where you place your ships If you chose to engage.

If you choose to engage an enemy then your ships should Start at a range where your ships can detect (and almost fire upon) the enemy ships. (if the enemy ships have a greater firing range, then they get the option of starting the battle farther away (so you are still almost in their firing range))

So you would Never start a battle without enemy ships Tactically visible. (at least some of them)

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