[FEEDBACK] [7.5B7+] A problem: Stations, combat balance, and faction response

[flywlyx]

I'm not talking about you doing it on purpose, rather it seems like something that such a system could easily cause on its own by accident.

That’s why a well-designed AI system would be incredibly useful. While players could still find ways to outsmart it, the AI wouldn’t make foolish mistakes on its own. Since all actions would be scripted, the chances of unintended behavior would be greatly reduced.

X3AP had Rapid Response Forces (RRF). They did jump in to deal with hostiles. It was possible to bait them to one spot and send another fleet to the real target. Although, I rather slaughtered them on the spot; there was a delay before respawn, basically as we see things in X4.

I think that's a major issue in X4 lacking the jump drive. RRF works because ships can jump directly to a location, whereas in X4, the travel drive mechanics and lack of proper fleet formation make patrol fleet responses a complete joke.

[LameFox]

That’s why a well-designed AI system would be incredibly useful. While players could still find ways to outsmart it, the AI wouldn’t make foolish mistakes on its own. Since all actions would be scripted, the chances of unintended behavior would be greatly reduced.

I mean I don't disagree, if designed well such a thing could add to the game. It just seems like it might be harder to implement well than it sounds.

[Falcrack]

In my opinion, defense modules (including Xenon) should have access to some long range turrets which outrange destroyer main guns, but which are not so powerful that they instant kill destroyers. Just so that a single destroyer cannot simply stay out of range without receiving any fire in return.

[jlehtone]

I think that's a major issue in X4 lacking the jump drive. RRF works because ships can jump directly to a location, whereas in X4, the travel drive mechanics and lack of proper fleet formation make patrol fleet responses a complete joke.

One thing is when and where to send what. The logic (aka "AI"). Another thing is how they get there.
Sure, if getting to a spot takes a year, then the dispatch should happen earlier. But does it now happen at all?

We do get "war news" of "[faction] recon [sector]" or "[faction] defend [sector]". Where do these come from?
Are they all the logic does? Why doesn't the opponent listen and use the "info"? Or does it?

In my opinion, defense modules (including Xenon) should have access to some long range turrets which outrange destroyer main guns, but which are not so powerful that they instant kill destroyers. Just so that a single destroyer cannot simply stay out of range without receiving any fire in return.

The "rock beats scissors". For example, Boron could have "EMP beam" that disables targets. The attacking capitals would become defanged ducks, both unable to hurt the station and vulnerable to station's fleets (if such a thing exists).

[Raptor34]

I think that's a major issue in X4 lacking the jump drive. RRF works because ships can jump directly to a location, whereas in X4, the travel drive mechanics and lack of proper fleet formation make patrol fleet responses a complete joke.

One thing is when and where to send what. The logic (aka "AI"). Another thing is how they get there.
Sure, if getting to a spot takes a year, then the dispatch should happen earlier. But does it now happen at all?

We do get "war news" of "[faction] recon [sector]" or "[faction] defend [sector]". Where do these come from?
Are they all the logic does? Why doesn't the opponent listen and use the "info"? Or does it?

That's a good point and part of the issue is that afaik nothing is actually documented.
Witness the recent thread where the devs came in and just casually dropped that defend for commander is not just defend for commander, it also defends other assets in the fleet too within a certain range. What range? Who knows. Because afaik none of these are mentioned anywhere.
The recent behavior inspection tool in beta is a good step forward, but it'll help general game troubleshooting if we know how things actually work. Hard to tell what's a bug and what's a feature when we don't know what's actually a feature. Especially since devs sometimes have specific use cases they designed the game for which are at odds with how the players make use of them.
Like this one for instance viewtopic.php?t=469339

[flywlyx]

I mean I don't disagree, if designed well such a thing could add to the game. It just seems like it might be harder to implement well than it sounds.

It wouldn’t be any harder than fixing the current system. After seven years, X4’s fighters still can’t properly intercept other ships, so expecting Egosoft to develop AI capable of using fleets to intercept fleets seems unrealistic to me.

One thing is when and where to send what. The logic (aka "AI"). Another thing is how they get there.
Sure, if getting to a spot takes a year, then the dispatch should happen earlier. But does it now happen at all?

We do get "war news" of "[faction] recon [sector]" or "[faction] defend [sector]". Where do these come from?
Are they all the logic does? Why doesn't the opponent listen and use the "info"? Or does it?

From my observation, NPC factions are not capable to identify any incoming threat, they only react to direct attack.

[stooper88]

I was monitoring this thread with concern but, with the release of 7.5, have only now witnessed firsthand the magnitude of the issue. Previously in 7.10, I was easily able to maintain XEN control of Matrix #451. For the most part, the lone XEN defense station at the gate would have no problem holding off combined TEL+MIN incursions (with even occasional assistance from PAR too). When the allied fleets were especially large (ten or more Phoenix destroyers, one or more Condor carrier(s), and one or more Stork auxiliary ships), merely entering the sector to switch to high attention mode would be sufficient to give XEN the advantage and stave off the assault. Usually, all it would take was a single K ship to assist the station in eliminating all threats.

However, much to my shock, today under 7.5 I witnessed a group of five Phoenix destroyers and their fighter escorts (no carrier at all) dismantle a defending K without any capital losses. So the destroyers are now not only adept at outranging the XEN defense stations, but also the XEN capital ships. This left the station without any remaining support.

I tried reloading several times and experimenting with low and high attention. Both resulted in massive XEN losses regardless. One observation was that the NPC capital ships are (in addition to leveraging range advantage) now taking advantage of the ability to boost without draining shields. This is allowing endangered capital ships the *CHANCE* to actually escape destruction, retreat, regroup, and then rejoin the battle whereas their dire fates were always sealed in the past. In my trials, sometimes the XEN station would be able to survive until more XEN reinforcements arrived, but other times it would be quickly and effortlessly destroyed. This makes it just a matter of time before the XEN eventually lose the sector.

So indeed, this seems to be a valid case of "wishing remorse" as the new NPC AI threatens to eradicate all the remaining Xenon in the universe (as well as cause other major upheavals).

[Raptor34]

Xenon also has boost right? Can't they just boost towards the faction destroyers?
Also "good" to know that this is actually a valid concern and not just basically RNG.

[flywlyx]

Xenon also has boost right? Can't they just boost towards the faction destroyers?
Also "good" to know that this is actually a valid concern and not just basically RNG.

Fleeing is much easier than chasing because any direction away from the enemy is a valid option, whereas chasing requires the ship to identify and follow a single correct path.
From my observation, AI still struggles significantly to execute a proper chase.
AI capital ships still lack the ability to prioritize targets, making fleet battles largely dependent on RNG—whichever side has more fighters increases the chances of capital ships engaging the right targets effectively.

[Raptor34]

Xenon also has boost right? Can't they just boost towards the faction destroyers?
Also "good" to know that this is actually a valid concern and not just basically RNG.

Fleeing is much easier than chasing because any direction away from the enemy is a valid option, whereas chasing requires the ship to identify and follow a single correct path.
From my observation, AI still struggles significantly to execute a proper chase.
AI capital ships still lack the ability to prioritize targets, making fleet battles largely dependent on RNG—whichever side has more fighters increases the chances of capital ships engaging the right targets effectively.

But you aren't chasing right? Since the above example is talking about a K against faction destroyers. Just boosting towards the target that is already shooting at you should work right?

[stooper88]

Xenon also has boost right? Can't they just boost towards the faction destroyers?
Also "good" to know that this is actually a valid concern and not just basically RNG.

Fleeing is much easier than chasing because any direction away from the enemy is a valid option, whereas chasing requires the ship to identify and follow a single correct path.
From my observation, AI still struggles significantly to execute a proper chase.
AI capital ships still lack the ability to prioritize targets, making fleet battles largely dependent on RNG—whichever side has more fighters increases the chances of capital ships engaging the right targets effectively.

But you aren't chasing right? Since the above example is talking about a K against faction destroyers. Just boosting towards the target that is already shooting at you should work right?

In the situation I encountered, the TEL fighter swarms retained the attention of the XEN (station and K) turrets while the damaged TEL destroyers quickly disengaged and recharged their shields. Even when the fleeing destroyers were still being targeted, they quickly fell out of range, thereby drawing fire away from ships which remained to pose threats to the XEN.

Furthermore, it might be my imagination, but it seems hull repairs are now massively accelerated as a Phoenix that was down to 34% hull was able to recover its hull back to 100% after seemingly mere minutes (couldn't have been more than three). Upon inspection, it only had three repair drones, but I couldn't verify if it originally had more. Regardless, none of the XEN small and medium ships have sufficient firepower to penetrate faction capital shields, even at 1%. Thus, faction capital ships become invulnerable once they boost beyond the range of all graviton turrets. In a way, boosting lends itself to invulnerability.

On that note, I've noticed that "Fragile Extraction" missions are now quite trivial as well once the target ship has been boarded. Avoiding mines during extraction is no longer relevant as all ships seem to have more than enough combined boost and shield capacity to simply barrel their way out of harm's way without risk of suffering any damage.

[flywlyx]

But you aren't chasing right? Since the above example is talking about a K against faction destroyers. Just boosting towards the target that is already shooting at you should work right?

Destroyers are moving targets, so Xenon K chases them. Many don’t even attempt to flee, making combat quick and easy, but some do try to escape.

[stooper88]

But you aren't chasing right? Since the above example is talking about a K against faction destroyers. Just boosting towards the target that is already shooting at you should work right?

Destroyers are moving targets, so Xenon K chases them. Many don’t even attempt to flee, making combat quick and easy, but some do try to escape.

My experience in 7.10 was that Xenon K chases rarely, if ever, went any noticeable distance because fleeing capital ships had almost zero chance of escape. Generating speed (i.e. boosting) would consume any remaining shields, and not boosting would result in the same shields being consumed by withering graviton fire. So entire squadrons of destroyers would fall in quick succession if they dared to go toe to toe with a K.

But with 7.5, faction capital ships now have very survivable odds of brawling with Ks as the AI can actually disengage prior to being destroyed now. Furthermore, it's mostly moot anyway as the AI favors maintaining distance and the faction ships have superior range. I only mentioned the boosting as I was so stunned by the TEL destroyers being able to completely avoid any losses (by actually managing to strategically retreat).

[Raptor34]

Maybe it's time to give Xenon ships better boost?

[flywlyx]

But with 7.5, faction capital ships now have very survivable odds of brawling with Ks as the AI can actually disengage prior to being destroyed now. Furthermore, it's mostly moot anyway as the AI favors maintaining distance and the faction ships have superior range. I only mentioned the boosting as I was so stunned by the TEL destroyers being able to completely avoid any losses (by actually managing to strategically retreat).

I also saw some BOR Rays engaging a Xenon K. The first Ray didn’t accomplish much and went down fairly quickly, but thanks to its shields, it still took the K some time to finish it off. However, when the K moved on to the second target, instead of positioning itself on top to maximize turret fire, it maneuvered in such an awkward way that most of its turrets couldn’t engage properly. This odd behavior gave the second Ray enough time to decide its next move and boost away. After that, the K seemed completely disoriented and was unable to effectively chase the Ray.

Maybe it's time to give Xenon ships better boost?

They need to move in the right direction first. You can see in this video that even Rattlesnakes are as ineffective as usual, and the Xenon K also lost its direction multiple times until I decided to finish it off myself.

[Raptor34]

I wonder if it has anything to do with station design.
What I'm witnessing is the weirdest shit. A solo Oddy E from PAR can solo a HOP defense station bristling with L turrets. Yet a random PAR station with 8 L Plasma can wipe the floor with 3-5 HOP Oddy Es.

Now I've gotten the opportunity to setup a PAR defense station at one of their border sectors, so it's partly why I'm reviving this topic, but I'm wondering if adding chaff to a station and putting defenses in the middle would help. Or maybe just adding chaff in general.
Because while it seems that destroyer AI keeps range for it's weapons, it's not keeping range against enemy weapons, which means that if you add random shit in your stations, in theory it could get stuck killing those while the stations turrets engages it.

And maybe add some random missiles or something, but since AI don't use closed loop I can't just do the cheat of adding a bunch of solar panels. But I can setup a missile component factory I guess...

TLDR: Perhaps station design matters more to mitigate the new destroyer AI. Any ideas?

[LameFox]

Do capitals actually boost at all, other than when they've passed a gate? I haven't seen them doing it. Might be that their behaviour in that regard hasn't changed at all, and it's not doing anything to help them close distance to targets (or escape them).

[Targ Collective]

The problem with this is that we can have stations and ships evenly matched; or we can give stations an advantage. For stations, their disadvantage is they cannot move while ships can. Their advantage is that *they can fit far more turrets if well built, any turrets ships can*. My Teslabooms are effectively unbeatable by the AI so the advantages work well.

So what the defence platform AI needs is a range advantage, and what the player needs is a way to disable the turrets and shield generators, to make things interesting. The capitals not utilising range advantage is something that was complained about - I know, as I was one of those who did. This is a game designed for entertainment, let's not lose sight of that. For defence platforms to have too much firepower against ships in the hands of the AI would give us unwinnable gameplay. But AI vs AI should be a balanced contest where the economy is the deciding factor.

That basically takes it to longrange advantage being dependent on economy - missile turrets with excellent range. That is why my Teslabooms are an unwinnable scenario - so long as the economy is sound and the missile reserves are there, they will never go down. The AI needs to have a ranged advantage counter, and one that can be disabled if you throw enough surface element damage at it. It also needs to be tied to the economy. Long range missiles are the solution, the AI just needs the means to use it.

[vkerinav]

The purpose of defense stations should be to delay invasion forces, not beat them. So I propose two things;

First, a station shield module, which projects a barrier up to 10 km in diameter, so you might need more than one, and it recharges fast enough that a single destroyer can't get through by bombarding it. However, you could fly through it and destroy the generator, probably with a fighter swarm. Or bring more destroyers. Or--this one will be controversial--make it run on e-cells, so you can properly siege them by choking off their supplies.

Second, sectorwide force projection. Since you can pretty easily go around one of these, they should have the ability to harry a foe that ignores them. I like the drone suggestion. How about a new 'harass' command, where the AI targets capship engines, resupply ships and freighters, then retreats back to base when attacked, trying to draw the enemy back with them. A defense hanger for S/M ships with launch tubes, which can restock consumables(and a more expensive version that can repair).

Station turrets should be primarily to keep the fighters off.