Suggestion/Idea Carrier/Fleet Automatic Reinforcing

This forum is the ideal place for all discussion relating to X4. You will also find additional information from developers here.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Is this something you would like in Foundations?

Yes!
22
43%
Yes, but it's a little too complicated. Maybe do without... (comment below)
6
12%
Yes, but more/better features would be.. (comment below)
1
2%
Maybe, if it doesn't take up too much dev time or can be added later.
14
27%
No (and why in comments below, please)
8
16%
 
Total votes: 51

ttheobald
Posts: 65
Joined: Wed, 7. Dec 05, 06:50
x4

Post by ttheobald » Sun, 28. Jan 18, 00:17

I've got two answers to this, depending on how this is set up in game:

* If carriers are "drone carriers", then the carrier should be able to be tasked with self-restock when needed. Ideally if you have a large group slaved to a flagship, it would be nice to have a "logistics role" vessel that you could task to that flagship, who would then be responsible for purchasing restock missiles, drones, etc. and delivering them (via drone?) to fleet member ships.

* If carriers are "fighter carriers", then losses would be something a player would instigate, but have a "manager" handle - CV loses some portion of its fighters, should send the player a note to the effect of its losses. At this point, player could issue a restock order to a manager (hired NPC?) who would be responsible for finding replacement goods.
- since fighters are generally armed to the player's custom choice, weapons and missiles can be limited in supply, or politically difficult to obtain. Restock may take time if the player chooses identical layout.
- taking a default layout, or "do the best you can" can speed that up
- ships themselves are sometimes limited in supply...

In both cases, missiles and railgun rounds should be something that has an automated option. Maybe assigning a shuttle of some kind to the ship (takes hangar space) and is dispatched for replacements when stocks reach threshold levels. Restock ship then becomes a valid target for pirates, enemy governments, hostile corporations, etc.

Requiemfang
Posts: 3206
Joined: Thu, 16. Jul 09, 12:24
x4

Post by Requiemfang » Sun, 28. Jan 18, 03:54

ttheobald wrote:I've got two answers to this, depending on how this is set up in game:

* If carriers are "drone carriers", then the carrier should be able to be tasked with self-restock when needed. Ideally if you have a large group slaved to a flagship, it would be nice to have a "logistics role" vessel that you could task to that flagship, who would then be responsible for purchasing restock missiles, drones, etc. and delivering them (via drone?) to fleet member ships.

* If carriers are "fighter carriers", then losses would be something a player would instigate, but have a "manager" handle - CV loses some portion of its fighters, should send the player a note to the effect of its losses. At this point, player could issue a restock order to a manager (hired NPC?) who would be responsible for finding replacement goods.
- since fighters are generally armed to the player's custom choice, weapons and missiles can be limited in supply, or politically difficult to obtain. Restock may take time if the player chooses identical layout.
- taking a default layout, or "do the best you can" can speed that up
- ships themselves are sometimes limited in supply...

In both cases, missiles and railgun rounds should be something that has an automated option. Maybe assigning a shuttle of some kind to the ship (takes hangar space) and is dispatched for replacements when stocks reach threshold levels. Restock ship then becomes a valid target for pirates, enemy governments, hostile corporations, etc.
The CODEA mod had similar features. If the devs don't do something its obvious that modders will fill the gap.

Nanook
Moderator (English)
Moderator (English)
Posts: 27829
Joined: Thu, 15. May 03, 20:57
x4

Post by Nanook » Mon, 29. Jan 18, 23:02

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?
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

User avatar
Crimsonraziel
Posts: 992
Joined: Sun, 27. Jul 08, 16:12
x4

Post by Crimsonraziel » Tue, 30. Jan 18, 01:09

Nanook wrote: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?
Because it's a game. It's supposed to be entertaining.
And sorry, "real generals" have adjutants that do the micromanagment.
Not everyone likes to do everything manually over and over again, when a simple script could do it. For those who do, fine.
If a ship get's destroyed it takes time and resources to replace it. This is enough "punishment" for not thinking or taking some risk. Auto-replace does not mean instant-replace.
Nanook wrote: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.
I can do the same thing without auto-replacement. In fact in previous games at a certain point I stopped buying smaller military ships and started using capital military ships almost exclusivly. In a way this is also throwing money at the enemy. I don't see much "think" or "tactics" in outclassing and outnumbering.
There was just no point in using smaller ships anymore, because they popped too fast. Often even before I got any message about being attacked.
You either set up a sector defense that crushes your enemies barely scratched, which isn't really fun or exciting, or with a growing empire you'll end up fixing fleets 80% of the time.

If you run a company, you don't get a note for every broken car in your car pool. You have subordinates and a budget for this. You get a note if it exceeds the budget or something extraordinary happens.

I'd rather like to see squadrons with purpose in late game than bugging the player for every single lost fighter.
Don't make me hungry. You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry!
#MakeNishalaGreatAgain #BoronLivesMatter :boron:
#LoveAldrin #FreeAlbion #ReturnOfMegalodon

TonyEvans
Posts: 1055
Joined: Sun, 15. Jan 12, 05:53
x4

Post by TonyEvans » Tue, 30. Jan 18, 05:36

@Gazz
ST/UT are so good they essentially break the game.
Which was an oversight, no doubt. But, functioning as intended or not, it exists. What I propose doesn't generate income, or even make the managing of fleets autonomous, but simply takes steps to balance the playing field between AI and Player. Currently, the AI can field and replace every ship everywhere at the cost of the player's computing power, however for a player to engage it extended "Hold this sector" type gameplay, s/he must constantly move to replace and rearm ships.

Rearming already exists to an extend in XR, but replacing does not. I have a feeling X4 is going to be bigger, and more complex, than both X3 and XR, simply because it seems the Devs are going to take strides to combine the best of both worlds. If that happens, and large-scale conquest can become part of the game, automated ship replacement within fleets is a feature that will greatly take the stress of players, provided their have an account to do it.
"wouldn't it be cool if" is a dangerous question if you're not also keeping an eye on the design goals.
Is a credits-fountain part of the design?
Wasn't sure if this was directed at my original idea, or a "ST/UT in Hindsight" statement.

@gbjbaanb
Maybe the optimal approach is to allow carriers and docks to have their repair bays, and to automatically repair ships that dock with them - including the station's fighter wing.
I agree, definitely. I don't want to make Repairing a part of this function, since XR made a point of enabling skill-based Engineer repair levels a thing. However, the option for Carriers to auto-repair fighters would be nice, but that is likely a subject for a different forum post.

@ttheobald

I'd totally support logistics-style fleet ship assignments, but it's not quite on-topic for this forum apart from resupplying Drones, which through the mechanics I proposed would be done through a Station-owned Hauler.

In X3 fighters were/could be very tedious to replace because they were, as you stated, armed to the player's custom choice. With XR, fighters were produced as-is and came pre-equipped with their weapons shields and missiles (which were unlimited in ammo).

As for where the ships are resupplied from, the fleet AI would automatically determine that based on availability, faction, and cost/distance/etc/etc. If there's a problem then the message is relayed to the player and it's up to him/her to figure out how to get supply lines flowing.

@Requiemfang
Requiemfang
I wish that were the case, and more, for XR. CODEA was my all-time favorite mod for X3 almost strictly because it had automatic patrols, fighter squadron detachments, and automated firing orders based on enemy ship type. If we're lucky X4 will incorporate that in base game, or at the very least will be like X3 enough that modders somehow port it over.

User avatar
Axeface
Posts: 2939
Joined: Fri, 18. Nov 05, 00:41
x4

Post by Axeface » Tue, 30. Jan 18, 07:00

I think that there should be functionality like this, but it should be handled by NPC subordinates that the player needs to hire/manage/check on, and NPC's should get better (or even worse) as they develop.
Players makes a 'fleet' containing at least one capital, and assign one of the ships captains as 'admiral' or something, and then new options appear when talking to that NPC and you can give them different orders, they handle giving orders to the rest of the fleet (can be many other capitals in said fleet). I think this should be handled in a similar way to Dragon Age Origins 'tactics' screen, where you get a lot of IF 'X' happens do 'Z', just like in DA:O, setting up your squad well and seeing them perform well because of it was quite rewarding. Also, npc's shouldnt just get better untill they are maxed out with stars etc, I'de like to see a system thats a little bit more complex, because an npc just being subpar until they are 5 stars in everything is very boring.

This way the player needs to pick the right npc's, watch as they improve (or get worse) and check that they are doing everything right, hiring/firing/replacing as they see fit.

Rebirth does things this way, kind of, but its not implimented very well imho and it's not rewarding. I really hope they double down on the hiring and management of npc's in X4 and make it better. Lets be honest, all our ships in X3 being pilotless drones (when we have drones too) and everyone elses ships having pilots was WEIRD, but we just let it slide... the obvious solution is to fix this by adding npcs.

Requiemfang
Posts: 3206
Joined: Thu, 16. Jul 09, 12:24
x4

Post by Requiemfang » Tue, 30. Jan 18, 18:16

Yeah micromanaging a dozen ships or even 2 or 3 dozen isn't so bad but after that it becomes tedious and boring. micromanaging isn't great when you have dozes upon dozens of ships. NO THANK YOU.

User avatar
BigBANGtheory
Posts: 3167
Joined: Sun, 23. Oct 05, 12:13
x4

Post by BigBANGtheory » Wed, 31. Jan 18, 12:11

I think some level of automated or assisted reinforcement is welcome, tbh its hard to say how much in advance of seeing the gameplay in action. X3 just abandoned you with any type of fleet management so clearly X4 has evolved far beyond that with what we know plus I think blueprints are in if I recall which should help the player with ship production. Going the full Homeworld solution of eating rocks (resources) and having auto production queues from your flagship or carrier is not a great solution for X4 imho it just doesn't fit with the whole concept of factory based production.

For me the happy medium is factory loop and or PHQ producing parts and assembling ships slowly, with you the player setting up the facility and sourcing the materials as a late game reward i.e. it should be something that requires a ton of planning, building and thinking before you can achieve automated ship production. Such a facility should be vulnerable to any enemies and require your attention to defend. In this example your fleet(s) would have to return to base to refit and restock.

I also agree with Nanook's point about not making ships disposible as it risk devaluing the strategic and thinking part of the gameplay experience.

User avatar
Killjaeden
Posts: 5366
Joined: Sun, 3. Sep 06, 18:19
x3tc

Post by Killjaeden » Wed, 31. Jan 18, 17:12

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. Its just button mashing. X3 had it, it was atrocious. Is that what you want?

Carriers without some sort of automation that makes it easier for players to replace losses, will lead to them beeing barely used by players. Players will instead buy and use just destroyers and similar vessels in numbers, because they require less replacing are only as much work to equip as 2 fighters at best.
I can't recall anyone mentioning how they used a carrier or something to that effect for doing run of the mill fight missions in X3TC or AP. It was pretty much always "jump in the destroyer(s)".

The argument that it "doesnt fit" X is because its not an RTS or 4X is ludicrous quite frankly, given the fact they are going for much improved map with RTS-like controlls for X4. Since X2 (maybe earlier, haven't played stuff before that), the games are a blend of genres. X3 could have never been counted as RTS - but only because of how tedious everything was to controll. The very late game gameplay totally justifies comparison with RTS and empire-building 4X games. When an empire becomes so large it is worth calling an empire, controlls must grow in efficiency. What works for 3 ships doesnt work for 30 and certainly not for 300. If you don't like fleets - good for you. But many people (including me) like it a lot because it gives purpose to having lots of money.

Gazz wrote:
TonyEvans wrote:That's all for trading, but no such system has ever existed for Combat, apart from stations being able to resupply their Drones through trade orders.
ST/UT are so good they essentially break the game.
You're rolling in practically infinite funds while they repair and refuel themselves.
Again with the "infinite funds" argument? The time it takes for a ST or UT to return it's investment is multiple hours. By the time this thing makes its money back i can plunder god knows how many freighters, sell their cargo (and bailed ships) and make countless millions. In a game without limit to growth there will always be time X where the player has so much money he doesnt know what to do with it. If a player is so rich that buying and outfitting fleets of M3 and carriers means nothing to him, he already has spent more than 100h (in X3R) on a single game. Why deny players the means of spending money effectively at that point? Unless he has the ability to spend the money on "pointless" things that do not progress his power in any way((like trying to wipe out faction X or erasing Xenon temporarily), he will get bored. If money is of little perceived value anymore and there is nothing to do with it -> boredom. Carriers and fleets are perfect money sinks. If they are easy to replace and controll, they are used more instead of just serving as space dust collecting 'prestige objects'.
Thats the nature of open end, unlimited sandbox games. Give players reasons and things to spend ressources on instead of trying to reduce power and ressource growth.

In minecraft you can automate farming. Is it making survival aspect obsolete? Absolutely. But it's fun to accomplish it. The game only lacks reasons and sinks to make building bigger and better farms reasonable and usefull.
BigBANGtheory wrote:I also agree with Nanook's point about not making ships disposible as it risk devaluing the strategic and thinking part of the gameplay experience.
Strategy and thinking means considering losses vs. the gain and trying to reduce it. If you sent many fighters some will die. That's the nature of it. If they are low efford to replace (not to be confused with beeing cheap...) that's acceptable. If they aren't they won't get used and people will use the big capitals for everything. Where is the *THINK* or strategy in that?
Last edited by Killjaeden on Wed, 31. Jan 18, 19:37, edited 3 times in total.
[ external image ]
X-Tended TC Mod Team Veteran.
Modeller of X3AP Split Acinonyx, Split Drake, Argon Lotan, Teladi Tern. My current work:
Image

TonyEvans
Posts: 1055
Joined: Sun, 15. Jan 12, 05:53
x4

Post by TonyEvans » Wed, 31. Jan 18, 18:40

Axeface wrote:I think that there should be functionality like this, but it should be handled by NPC subordinates that the player needs to hire/manage/check on, and NPC's should get better (or even worse) as they develop.
--
--
This way the player needs to pick the right npc's, watch as they improve (or get worse) and check that they are doing everything right, hiring/firing/replacing as they see fit.

--
--
I can get behind this, however I'm not sure about the "better or worse" aspect. Preferably, they should just get better. Perhaps a Research/NPC hybrid system requiring greater player progression before large-scale empire efficiency is helped?

@Killjaeden Thank you for the backup here! And some great points I hadn't thought about. You covered everything I would have said and more.

Nanook
Moderator (English)
Moderator (English)
Posts: 27829
Joined: Thu, 15. May 03, 20:57
x4

Post by Nanook » Wed, 31. Jan 18, 19:45

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:
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

User avatar
Killjaeden
Posts: 5366
Joined: Sun, 3. Sep 06, 18:19
x3tc

Post by Killjaeden » Wed, 31. Jan 18, 20:03

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.
[ external image ]
X-Tended TC Mod Team Veteran.
Modeller of X3AP Split Acinonyx, Split Drake, Argon Lotan, Teladi Tern. My current work:
Image

TonyEvans
Posts: 1055
Joined: Sun, 15. Jan 12, 05:53
x4

Post by TonyEvans » Wed, 31. Jan 18, 21:18

@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.

User avatar
BigBANGtheory
Posts: 3167
Joined: Sun, 23. Oct 05, 12:13
x4

Post by BigBANGtheory » Thu, 1. Feb 18, 10:47

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.

TonyEvans
Posts: 1055
Joined: Sun, 15. Jan 12, 05:53
x4

Post by TonyEvans » Thu, 1. Feb 18, 11:10

@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.

Cabrelbeuk
Posts: 782
Joined: Fri, 26. Apr 13, 23:54
x4

Post by Cabrelbeuk » Fri, 2. Feb 18, 02:53

Sounds like a good mod idea. Or something coming in late(r) game.
AMD R7 2700X 3.7GHz - GTX 1070 Ti 8Go Asus cerberus - 16Go RAM 3200MHz - Asus Prime X470-Pro - LG 32" 4K 60Hz - SSD Samsung Evo850 512 GB - HDD Toshiba 2 To 7200 Tr/min - Onkyo HTS-7800 Dolby Atmos 5.1.2

csatrad
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu, 17. Aug 17, 18:24
x4

Post by csatrad » Tue, 1. May 18, 11:01

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.

ajime
Posts: 335
Joined: Mon, 15. May 17, 09:00
x4

Post by ajime » Wed, 2. May 18, 06:04

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.

csatrad
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu, 17. Aug 17, 18:24
x4

Post by csatrad » Fri, 4. May 18, 07:29

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?

Post Reply

Return to “X4: Foundations”