[2.51] OOZ combat issues

[Lander1979]

It's a pity that the 300 drone compliment of a Carrier is completely ignored in the resolution of a battle OOZ though, one would think the Carrier could easily defeat anything it comes across. If the fighter Vanguard can function OOZ then why not the carriers drones?

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

They all have the same AI.
No matter what ship it is - all capitals use the same scripts.

Drones are not launched in OOZ, that's a known fact.


Also, the attack/defend states for defence officer only affect turrets - NOT the whole ship.
If you set your defence officer to ATTACK mode, the ship will NOT engage enemies, only turrets will shoot, if enemy is range.

And same for captain's commands: They only affect the ship, but NOT turrets.


Turrets are controlled by defence officers and ship movement is controlled by captain.
Those are two completly stand-alone things. Defence officer and captain don't communicate in ANY way.
DO will simply use turrets to attack anything in range, and CPT will move the ship.

[Lander1979]

In Zone, the Defence Officer setting also dictates the launch and behaviour of drones, not just the turrets.

Also when the Captain is given an attack order, the DO also changes to that order, although I have noticed discrepancies here between the DO state in the general ship info screen and the DO's Detail screen after this order is issued (one may state "Defending", whilst the other states "Attacking Enemies").

I think Sandapocalypse has the answer here, in that the DO simply isn't present OOZ, hence no drones when OOZ.

[bm01]

It's a pity that the 300 drone compliment of a Carrier is completely ignored in the resolution of a battle OOZ though, one would think the Carrier could easily defeat anything it comes across. If the fighter Vanguard can function OOZ then why not the carriers drones?

Some mods tried to make ships (not necessarily carriers, and again, "Carrier" isn't a ship category) use drones, but it led to serious bugs.

I don't think it's a bug that drones aren't used while OOZ/OOS, this is just another non-finished thing.

[Lord Crc]

I don't think it's a bug that drones aren't used while OOZ/OOS, this is just another non-finished thing.

When OOZ the capital ships simply calculate their firepower and applies it as damage to the target. So it would seem the function which calculates the firepower does not factor in the drones it has.

The mining script does something similar, where, when OOZ, it simply depletes the zone for resources at a steady rate dictated by the drones the mining ship has.

So, from what I can see, the function which calculates firepower "just" needs to take into account the drones on board similar to mining.

edit: though drones should also get killed when OOZ so that adds a bit of complexity.

[Luke0086]

@Luke0086: It is not about if the Arawn or any other ship should be coded to use drones primarily - it is about ships behaving appropriately given the match up of capability.

For example: If a given ship can take out a given enemy ship then it should (and use the appropriate tactics) otherwise it should steer clear of it. If the carried drones can take out the enemy, then they should be deployed otherwise they should perhaps be not launched. In damned if you do or damned if you don't situation then they should throw everything they have at it and hope for the best.

I have a Fulmekron in my squad and find that it can disengage the booster too late to give it's shields time to recharge if boosting in zone to assist me (the bug in that case is probably the shields being drained by the booster in the first place though).

bm01's earlier post sheds some light on the situation and indicates that PERHAPS the OOZ combat calculations can be modded.

@Roger L.S. Griffiths who said it was about if the Arrawn or any other ship should be coded to use drones primarily - I'm not sure where you're making this up from? lol. But since you mention it, actually, an Arrawn would be most cost effective if it DIDN'T launch drones, since they are fragile and costly (EXCEPT for targets that are strong enough to take down the arrawn's shields before the Arrawn could destroy it, which doesn't include any ship in Albion, only Omicron Lyrae).

But before you missunderstand me (I hope you're not doing it purposely)... I'll go ahead and make it clear that I do put drones on my Arrawns, and I do like them launching the drones. But every now and again, you have to replace them which is costly and takes time.

In hind sight however, I'm confused as to whether or not what you said actually applies to the thread topic? As we're discussing OOS / OOZ combat, correct? and the difference between those and IS/IZ combat. I fail to see the connection between that and what you're talking about, but I'll go ahead and trust you.

[Luke0086]

From what I gather, there is one type of attack used by all capital ships, close in and attack. Which is proving to be detrimental to Carriers, Sucellus, and Balor ships, which need to employ their primary attacks at a maximum range, as they themselves are support ships.

There needs to be a second attack which in essence is a "kiting" or "stand-off" attack mode, where the ship attempts to keep its closest target just within the maximum range of it's primary weapons, being drones, missiles, and artillery guns.

I agree with the statement about the Sucellus and Balor ships - their limited close range firepower and their delicateness proves that.

However I would have to ask you how it is proving to be detrimental to carriers? It could be considered detrimental to Sul's - I hope these are the only ships you're talking about, as you have before now classed the Arrawn as a standard carrier, but close range combat proves very beneficial for the arrawn against other ships.

[Luke0086]

and sometimes friendly ships will be hit by the drones by accident-turn red, and be attacked as well.

If the Rahannas accidently was to hit something, I believe it would get the same reaction of returned hostility.

I was under the impression that a ship's drone can turn the reacting entity hostile against the drone's owner as well?

[Luke0086]

I have performed an Out Of Zone (OOZ) combat experiment with the plot Rahanas and a Fedhelm versus a Cartel Balor.

Save File
http://www.mediafire.com/view/u6aymtg4v ... ve_002.xml

This had a completely different result to the IZ experiments.

1. Both ships were ordered in to the combat zone (Sinister Poem), the Rahanas DO set to "defensive", the Fedhelm DO set to "Attack Enemies".

2. A "Cartel Boss Vulnerable" mission was accepted, and I briefly entered the zone (Sinister Poem) to trigger the spawn, then moved to the next zone via the local highway.

3. The Fedhelm was ordered to "Attack all Enemies in Zone", It began it's attack run against the Balor. The Rahanas did not react in any way.

4. The Rahanas DO was set to "Attack Enemies", there was no response from the Rahanas. The Fedhelm had closed in and was attacking the Balor.

5. The Rahanas was given the order to "Attack All Enemies in Zone", It began to close in and attack the Balor with it's onboard weapons, despite having a full compliment of drones, none were launched at any time.

Conclusion;
Despite having a full compliment of drones, the OOZ Carrier (the Rahanas in this example) did not use any of them, choosing to close in and attack with it's on-board weapons systems only.

When a friendly asset was attacked OOZ, the Carrier with it's DO set to defensive did not launch it's drones, as it did with the IZ combat experiment, but chose to remain neutral to the conflict.

In conclusion, it appears that the OOZ capital ship combat scripting does not take into account any drones the ships may be carrying, nor does it implement any stand-off tactics for the use of long range weaponry, nor does it implement any Defensive/Support tactics utilizing drones to support friendly units under attack whilst the DO has a "Defend" order.

I agree with the OP, this is definitely a bug/unintended behaviour.

As a temporary workaround, I would NOT use Carriers for Out Of Zone Combat, I would use only Destroyers with a sufficient fighter vanguard set as a subordinate under the Destroyer's command.

For In Zone combat, Carriers remain a potent stand-off weapons system, but If OOZ I would order them somewhere safe until they are needed.

A very good test - but did you wait and see the outcome of the battle?

I've found, that even with a Fulmekron or a Taranis in the zone of an enemy attacking my station/construction vessel, that combat went on continuously (I even left the game running when I went to bed, and the fight was still going on in the morning).

I have yet to see the conclusion end of any OOZ/OOS combat - this includes also using an Arrawn if I remember correctly, but i'll test that again if I get the opportunity.

[adrian_egosoft]

Hi all, I would like to clarify some details here, because there are some confusions:

Turrets are controlled by defence officers and ship movement is controlled by captain.
Those are two completly stand-alone things. Defence officer and captain don't communicate in ANY way.
DO will simply use turrets to attack anything in range, and CPT will move the ship.

Is true that DO and CPT work separately, but the CPT sends an attack order to the DO if that is the CPT's command.

I don't think it's a bug that drones aren't used while OOZ/OOS, this is just another non-finished thing.

Drones don´t exist OOZ (performance reasons), so is intended that they do not launch them.

So, from what I can see, the function which calculates firepower "just" needs to take into account the drones on board similar to mining.

They are taken into account in the OOZ attack function.
It may still need some balance, we are working on some modifications on this function.

And about the initial post, I cannot help much there unless there more specific details or reproducible steps. Could be something specific that happened to that single ship (not all Arawn ships)

[Lord Crc]

They are taken into account in the OOZ attack function.
It may still need some balance, we are working on some modifications on this function.

Thanks for the feedback. I was of course basing my impression on what was stated in this thread. And drone loss should be factored in I think.

And about the initial post, I cannot help much there unless there more specific details or reproducible steps. Could be something specific that happened to that single ship (not all Arawn ships)

I guess it should be relatively easy for a modder to go to an empty sector somewhere and spawn in a few ships of two warring factions, then see how it goes in-zone vs out-of-zone, averaged over a few runs each. If things are balanced the results should, on average, be similar. Of course has to be tested in various ship configurations, so a fairly tedious thing to do.

[Zetoss]

Ah, some great feedback right from the source! Thank you so much Adrian, this could possibly explain my whole problem of a theoretically vastly superior ship getting trashed by something significantly weaker. There is absolutely the possibility that the ships I lost encountered ships packed with a ton of drones that were calculated as all being used at once and the buff the drones would provide could very well make a Taranis crush an Arawn. IZ combat only launches a few drones at a time (not complaining, my PC might not be able to run the game otherwise) that usually get picked off quickly by a big ship and rarely have any effect on outcome but if the OOZ calculations just lump them all together that could add up to a fearsome attack bonus indeed.

I now have Fulmekrons sitting in the same spots where I lost Arawns, their firepower should be comparable I think? The Fulmekrons I have only fly with moderately skilled crew and have barely any combat drones on board so if I lose one it's quite probable that the drones did tip the scale, in that case it's just a matter of balance; either OOZ overpowers them or IZ underpowers them.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@Luke0086: It is not about if the Arawn or any other ship should be coded to use drones primarily - it is about ships behaving appropriately given the match up of capability.

For example: If a given ship can take out a given enemy ship then it should (and use the appropriate tactics) otherwise it should steer clear of it. If the carried drones can take out the enemy, then they should be deployed otherwise they should perhaps be not launched. In damned if you do or damned if you don't situation then they should throw everything they have at it and hope for the best.

I have a Fulmekron in my squad and find that it can disengage the booster too late to give it's shields time to recharge if boosting in zone to assist me (the bug in that case is probably the shields being drained by the booster in the first place though).

bm01's earlier post sheds some light on the situation and indicates that PERHAPS the OOZ combat calculations can be modded.

@Roger L.S. Griffiths who said it was about if the Arrawn or any other ship should be coded to use drones primarily - I'm not sure where you're making this up from? ...

The comment was primarily in response to your apparent assumption that I was implying that the Arawn (or any other carrier) should use drones as a primary attack tool as per...

With the delicateness of drones and their cost, I actually think it would be a bad idea to change any 'carrier' to using drones as it's main offence as it would be much more costly in the long run.

The running cost is not the primary issue in Combat calcs/AI per se but the survivability is, if that means using drones then so be it.

@Adrian_egosoft: Some good information there, it is good to get confirmation about something I believed would be going on anyway

I would have to agree with Lord Crc on factoring in potential drone loss in OOZ combat calcs. I do find it a little strange though that drones are not treated as independent or even wing/group entities OOZ for combat.

If they are just treated as a force multiplier factor for the carrying craft in OOZ combat (even with attrition factors) it can either make a ship too effective or not effective enough OOZ when compared with their IZ performance.

For example: IZ a carrier with lots of "bug bite" fighters attacking it could possibly wipe them out using drones but OOZ the "bug bite" fighters may win instead. Conversely, IZ a carrier v. a higher powered vessel may not be able to survive regardless of the number of drones while OOZ the drones could tip the power scale in favour of the carrier. These are extreme cases perhaps but they should be considered (as well as possibly other cases) if OOZ calculations are to continue to be as simplified as you seem to indicate they are. We have seen comparable IS/OOS balance disparity issues with older X games.

Past experience has shown Egosoft have not been brilliant at being comprehensive with their testing and I hope that the on-going X-Rebirth development will act as good evidence that this has changed (or is changing) for the better.

[adrian_egosoft]

if OOZ calculations are to continue to be as simplified as you seem to indicate they are.

I didn't say that the calculations are simple, I said that drones count in that function. In deed, the calculation is very complex. For example, it takes in account things like turret's rotation speed compared with target velocity, target maneouver capabilities, shield, hull and DPS, distances and angle orientations from turrets, and so on.

But we are investigating that, after we added the big capital ship shields, there can be some issues with the calculations. So, we are working on it

[Luke0086]

Hi all, I would like to clarify some details here, because there are some confusions:

Turrets are controlled by defence officers and ship movement is controlled by captain.
Those are two completly stand-alone things. Defence officer and captain don't communicate in ANY way.
DO will simply use turrets to attack anything in range, and CPT will move the ship.

Is true that DO and CPT work separately, but the CPT sends an attack order to the DO if that is the CPT's command.

I don't think it's a bug that drones aren't used while OOZ/OOS, this is just another non-finished thing.

Drones don´t exist OOZ (performance reasons), so is intended that they do not launch them.

So, from what I can see, the function which calculates firepower "just" needs to take into account the drones on board similar to mining.

They are taken into account in the OOZ attack function.
It may still need some balance, we are working on some modifications on this function.

And about the initial post, I cannot help much there unless there more specific details or reproducible steps. Could be something specific that happened to that single ship (not all Arawn ships)

It's great to have the feedback from an official

I would imagine that the problem with ever-lasting OOZ/OOS combat is also being looked at? Or am I the only one experiencing this?



@Roger L.S. Griffiths
I see what path you're going down now, and it was in reply to this:

but it is still a Carrier by it's own definition and specs.

Where by you forget the Arrawns massive weapons armory when stating it's 'Specced as a carrier', where real life carriers do not have major weapons, if any. It did seem to me that you're implying the Arrawn's main attack should be drones - However I didn't write that sentance because of that. I'm just stating I think it would be a bad idea, quite simply, and was in no way in response to your suggesting that the Arrawn has the definition and specs of a carrier - I hope this clears it up for you

The running cost is not the primary issue in Combat calcs/AI per se but the survivability is, if that means using drones then so be it.

Unfortunately, you're using something with high survivability to launch several entities with very low survivability. This adds cost - and cost matters. Also, it takes time to individually dock each ship and resupply them with drones.

The Arrawn's good combat survivability is the main reason I buy them, and skip right to them over the Taranis. I like the taranis, but they do get destroyed rather easily sometimes in cases where an Arrawn wouldn't of even lost it's shields, hence it costs nothing to put into combat. However as Adrian confirmed, drones are already taken into account for OOS/OOZ combat calculations, and they're not anywhere near as simple as you seemed to have presumed, thus of course will take time to balance. In my experience, not a lot of combat seems to happen OOS/OOZ, so this is more immersion for me and i'm fine to wait for it to be perfected after they fix other more immediate problems. I understand priorities may be different for others.

[Lander1979]

In my experiment I found that drone's were not used by drone carriers in OOZ combat, even if they are factored in to the combat scripting, the player has no indication of this.

Unlike OOZ mining ships where we are given the impression the ship is using it's drones for mining, during OOZ combat we are given no impression of their use in the fight.

There are Zero drones launched, Zero Drones in use, and Zero drones damaged or destroyed, the impression this gives the player is that they are not used or needed, which is obviously incorrect.

I think there needs to be some indication given that they are in use, even if they are not being launched for performance reasons, they should at least appear to be in use when looking at the ships info screen during OOZ combat for instance. And one would expect a loss of combat drones in battle as well.

This could also provide another useful sink for the economy; increasing the demand for combat drones.

[Sandalpocalypse]

OOZ attack strength should be exposed to the player, it would drastically reduce confusion on this front.

[Lander1979]

Another aspect of this problem lies with the perception of the drones fragility when used In Zone as well. Drones are likened to being overpriced semi-reusable missiles, where the player can expect little cost benefit from employing them. This leads to the player either neglecting to equip them or purposefully choosing not to as a cost-saving benefit.

IMO the drones need rebalancing so that they are more robust In Zone, so that they are more like unmanned fighters rather than expensive semi-reusable missiles. This would encourage the player to equip them more often rather than not often at all.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@Adrian_egosoft: I said simplified - not simple - the former does not imply the latter.

If the ranging and independent targeting of drone swarms is not taken into account with OOZ calculations (as is implied by your earlier feedback) then they are indeed "simplified" (perhaps overly so). Optimising OOZ calculations to match IZ calculations without doing exactly the same computations is not an easy task and anyone that claims otherwise is fooling themselves IMO.

Regardless, my other points (wrt testing) still stand.

@Luke0086: I would not get hung up on ship classifications and how well they match real life classifications. Even in Real life ship classifications is not a cut-and-dry thing - case in point is the British Invincible class which is/was considered a carrier by some but a through deck cruiser by others.

The overriding point about drone use is that regardless of which ship we are talking about - they should be used by the AI as and when deemed appropriate. Arguably, the IZ AI for them could do with a bit of a boost too - at the moment they do not appear to be deployed in effective swarms but rather seem to be deployed as independent fighters or at least in swarms too small for their intended targets.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

@Adrian_egosoft: I said simplified - not simple - the former does not imply the latter.

This reminds me of an earlier discussion where someone clung to an incorrect dictionary definition instead of conceeding a point

Simplified by definition does means that something has been made simple so Adrian was linguistically accurate even if your interpretation of what he actually said was quite speculative.

Adrian, thanks very much for your contribution to these discussions.