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Posted: Wed, 31. Jan 18, 19:45
by Nanook
Killjaeden wrote:
Nanook wrote:Players need to think carefully before sending their units into battle. If everything is auto-replaced, and the player has plenty of funds (which is typically the case), then all the player has to do is keep throwing ships at a problem until it's solved. There's no 'Think' involved with that. But if the player has to do a lot of the replenishment themselves, it forces them to think before acting. Real generals/admirals have to deal with logistics so why not the player?
Please tell me what "think" there is involved in manually re-buying, reequipping and re-setting up every lost fighter. ...
The 'Think' part is obvious. Do you want to do the "button mashing" or do you want to try something different? If you tend to lose masses of ships/fighters, you might want to try another approach. Having a resupply system that just keeps throwing assets at a problem is, to me, a lot more boring. :shrug:

Posted: Wed, 31. Jan 18, 20:03
by Killjaeden
Nanook wrote: If you tend to lose masses of ships/fighters, you might want to try another approach.
Why do you associate having to replace losses with having entire fleets eradicated over and over again? If you have 5 carriers patrolling your space to defend against hostiles and each bumping into the occasional pirate, xenon or khaak patrol... You will lose fighters, corvettes or even capitalls eventually. One by one. What compelling argument can you give that justifies having to constantly check every carrier or patrol if it has lost ships, and then having to buy, equip and order around all the replacements so they are back in action?

What great "other approach" would you suggest against eternally-respawning and eternally hostile patrols (xenons certainly) trying to attack your space, other than "send more destroyers"´or "suck less", "play easy mode"?

"Players should be punished with repetitive, tedius and poorly streamlined game mechanics if they allowed their assetts to be destroyed or failed to protect them" - said propably no game dev ever.
Having a resupply system that just keeps throwing assets at a problem is, to me, a lot more boring. :shrug:
Who is throwing the assets at a problem? It's the player who is throwing stuff at something, not the resupply system. The resupply system reduces clumsy and un-fun micro management. It's not a human-wave-thing :roll: Having ships get resupplied to the carrier is a timely process. The ships get ordered, equipped and fly to the carrier. Except the player does not have to do every single action himself.
If X3's prices are any indicator, youd be out of funds fast if you just throw M3 at something all day long.
Also, throwing assetts at a problem works just as effectively without resupply system - but only for big large assetts like destroyers. So players can do what you apparently abhorr anyway since forever. But not with fighters.
The game / AI throws problems at the player constantly. The AI have automatic resupply. Why shouldn't the player?

What if a pirate patrol shot down your factories freighter? Do you want to be forced to replace it manually? Or wouldnt you like the option to have it replaced for you, with your own NPC's (or 3rd party serives...) buying you the freighter, equipping it and setting it up with all settings, route stuff and equipment identical (if available). Save you the hazzle, so that you can move on and just deal with the economic loss? Thats the exact same deal as with fighters on carriers. X4 needs a general purpose replacement system that reduces micro management - for everything that can be destroyed or damaged (stations, ships, wings, fleets, carriers, etc). Simple as that.

A replacement system makes losses more acceptable. This means that players are also less like to save scum (as in reloading the game everytime a player assett goes kaputt to prevent it from happening). This in turn makes the game more interesting for the player, as there are more set backs he actually has to counteract.

Posted: Wed, 31. Jan 18, 21:18
by TonyEvans
@Nanook

I see and appreciate where you're coming from, but I think you may misunderstand the point of the features I'm proposing.

To start, this isn't a "throw ships at the problem until the problem is gone" feature, but more of a "long-term fleet upkeep" feature, letting the player focus on other things without worrying about replacing an escort for a Trader or replacing a couple corvettes in a patrol fleet near a pirate sector.

Your concerns, as I understand it, are that it doesn't force a player to adjust tactics or strategy with fleet composition.
Scenario: Player Fleet engages enemy ships in a sector. Player fleet loses and is forced to retreat. While the player fleet is out recouping ships and attack strength, the AI is also rebuilding their defenses. By the second attack, both fleets are back up to full strength.
Now, this is actually better for a few reasons.
  • The player doesn't need to reload a previous save in order to undo the damage.
  • With more-or-less the same fleet as before, the player CAN try a new strategy using the same ships. If that fails, or even before, s/he can always add new ships or change the ones already there before trying again. Also, this way, the player isn't spending more time rebuilding the fleet manually that actually using it in combat.
Another concern is what you're understanding as an endless supply of fleet, firepower and pewpewpew. This is, again, not the case. The resupply of ships will depend heavily on the economy. Ideally, player-owned stations would provide a cheaper, and more efficient, means of replacing lost ships. Manufacturing a lost ship or two is no big deal manually or otherwise, however in bulk and variation the player will NEED to make sure the economy can support it. If not, the ships will take even longer to replace and fleet strength will be down far longer than normal. This ties the Fight and Trade aspects together, as well as requiring Thinking. If those systems aren't in place, then Build is needed, which is the core of the X series.

The "Think" part may be obvious to you when you think about it in terms of your preferred game play style, but in X it can mean many things. What tactics you use. Figuring out supply chains. What sectors are worth holding onto and which ones are easily given up. With X there's usually your Goal, and a Means, and both depends on who is playing the game. Your think may very well just be manually rebuilding and reorganizing ships, but I may want that part done for me and I can focus on combat tactics, direction, etc. In the end, it's about how much of the time you have to play do you want to spend on specific tasks.

Posted: Thu, 1. Feb 18, 10:47
by BigBANGtheory
The resupply system doesn't have to be quick or without consequence though I think the OP is more concerned with QoL and not having to manually resupply like in X3 which was painful to the point of making carriers useless.

Finding the right balance in X4 from the start will be tough for ES. I think if we at least can queue ship production from blueprints at the PHQ or shipyard then that goes a long way to help remove repetitive micro-management from the player.

Posted: Thu, 1. Feb 18, 11:10
by TonyEvans
@BigBANGtheory

Exactly. Also, I don't think I would want this feature available from the get-go. Later down the road and unlockable via research, quest or NPC would be ideal. It should be an aspect of having an established empire.

Posted: Fri, 2. Feb 18, 02:53
by Cabrelbeuk
Sounds like a good mod idea. Or something coming in late(r) game.

Posted: Tue, 1. May 18, 11:01
by csatrad
i say yes but this is waaay to many option to implement.
The most cost efficent ways to do this.

1. Set same "ai" command like managers have in bases in XR. So whenever any ship docks with anything it runs a check if replacement avaiable. if yes just fill up to set value.

2. (can work in conjuction with 1.) If a manager is put on a ship instead of a base, it has the same resuply ai then in bases in XR, except instead of moving an assigned ship, it moves itself to buy replacement, the only difference is that the whole ship is assigned to another ship and it fills that up.

Posted: Wed, 2. May 18, 06:04
by ajime
Im fine with X3's manual replenishment since i don't keep a large fleet most of the time anyways. I grab a TM get those wrecks in it and get it to shipyard. Put some armed escorts if i think the route is hazardous.
If i want rts i'll go play battlefleet gothic. Not that i have anything against more automation though.

Posted: Fri, 4. May 18, 07:29
by csatrad
its simple
if pirate attacks automated on you, but protection is not, then
you either wont play that part or you have to and becomes a core gamepla element,
which one do you want?