Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0

[Garfunkel]

Your mine-missiles need active sensors to look for new targets.

[nuclearslurpee]

#1. Static single-target selection in a fleet setting.
When a fleet of multiple identically-sized targets of the same class enters range, every mine will fire at the top-most target, overkilling then self-destructing because even with retarget capability, they won't seek out new targets. Assuming the attached image posts, yes it is a 48,000 ton ship with 2x800 tons of escorts, but in a previous incident against 2 of the exact same ship I had the exact same problem where the mines targeted the very first ship exclusively.

Mines and for that matter any missiles that rely on sensors really, really should select targets randomly within whatever rules they work with. There's no fluff reason why all mines or missiles go after the exact same target when there are multiple identical ones on their sensors, it's purely a game mechanical issue where the "top" target is selected instead of randomly selecting from all "identical" targets.

I'd love to see a weighted random targeting chance (e.g., 67% chance of targeting the size-200 contact, 33% chance of targeting the size-100 contact), but I'd settle for simply splitting the fire between identical targets.

[Steve Zax]

I thought mines were still broken.

[nakorkren]

I'll second that recommendation: please make mines select targets randomly within some criteria, rather than always on the same target.

This would enhance utility of mines (i.e. make them actually relevant), create a strategic benefit to defense, make "space geography" actually matter in some way beyond "which side of the jump point am I on", etc.

To forestall the inevitable protest, yes, doing so would be highly likely to upset the general balance of combat in some way. We can either try to predict it, or playtest it, and I know which way would be more fun

[GenStone]

Your mine-missiles need active sensors to look for new targets.

Missile Size: 7.27 MSP  (18.175 Tons)     Warhead: 9.0    Radiation Damage: 9.0
Speed: 24,072 km/s     Fuel: 150     Flight Time: 85 seconds     Range: 2,046,078 km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.2   EM Sensitivity Modifier: 8
Resolution: 20    Maximum Range vs 1000 ton object (or larger): 1,937,141 km
Decoys: 1 ECM-1     ECCM-1     ATG: 25%     Retarget Capable
Cost Per Missile: 8.745     Development Cost: 467
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 300.9%   3k km/s 100.3%   5k km/s 60.2%   10k km/s 30.1%

Materials Required
Corbomite  1.05
Tritanium  2.25
Boronide  2.3075
Uridium  0.95
Gallicite  2.1875
Fuel:  150

Missile Size: 29.74 MSP  (74.350 Tons)     Warhead: 0    Radiation Damage: 0
Speed: 0 km/s     Fuel: 600     1st Stage Flight Time: 1 seconds    1st Stage Range: 0k km
2nd Stage Flight Time: 85 seconds    2nd Stage Range: 2,046.1k km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.2   EM Sensitivity Modifier: 8
Resolution: 20    Maximum Range vs 1000 ton object (or larger): 1,937,141 km
ECCM-1     
Cost Per Missile: 35.350     Development Cost: 940
Second Stage: NSP STK-II R20-1.93m/2m-24kk/85s-Wh9-D1RTC x4
Second Stage Separation Range: 1,850,000 km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 0%   3k km/s 0%   5k km/s 0%   10k km/s 0%

Materials Required
Corbomite  4.25
Tritanium  9.00
Boronide  9.3500
Uridium  4.00
Gallicite  8.7500
Fuel:  600

(I don't actually know where the button to copy missile stats is, so I loaded up the missile on load previous and then corrected the ECM-2 to ECM-1 and the Second Stage Separation to 1.85m)
But yeah, I have sensors. I have retarget capability.

I thought mines were still broken.

Launch Ready Ordnance placed mines seem to work as long as the first stage has no engine. I tried making a 2-stage geosurvey probe to fire at habitable worlds to avoid STO fire on occupied planets but I couldn't target the planet to fire at with MFCs. Tried to deploy the probe anyways and it just permanently deployed the first "Deployment" stage of the probe which never timed out to deploy the second stage, so I just deleted the salvo. And then the probes. I regret wasting the time to develop them and I regret the time wasted building and loading them into my scouts, since they're actually useless.
You need sensors on the mine-host and the mine-missile, so I just copied the sensor and ECCM value exactly.
The problem with them is the god-awful target acquisition and the overkill potential - I understand intellectually that a terrible 1,000 ton scout craft can trigger my entire minefield and run away/die horribly, but watching a fleet of 3-7 ships approach a planet with a big minefield on it and all 160 missiles pop on a single target and then self-destruct, hurts. I did a recount of the damage reports - there are only 80 missiles listed in the damage reports section, which means that the other half of missile salvo, 80 entire unused missiles, self-terminated with retarget capabilities and valid targets

I do not claim to know the impact on game balance changes to this would have, but missiles are already a mixed-bag. They cannot provide a sustained static defense since the fleet has to return and rearm or be shipped more munitions actively. I decided to try out mines specifically to counter fast raids while I develop the technology to build real defense stations and the infrastructure to support and repair them, however the above situation has proven that they do not work. As jump point defenses, they clearly will not work either since the same scenario will occur. Ship arrives, eats every single mine on the jump point, the next ship arrives.

Edit: I shouldn't need to, but I'm going to add retarget capability to the first-stage mine "launch" platform and test that. Again, I shouldn't need to do this since the first stage shouldn't be actively telling mines with seekers where to go, but it is theoretically possible I need retarget on both. If I do, please change it so I don't need to, lol.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

#1. Static single-target selection in a fleet setting.
When a fleet of multiple identically-sized targets of the same class enters range, every mine will fire at the top-most target, overkilling then self-destructing because even with retarget capability, they won't seek out new targets. Assuming the attached image posts, yes it is a 48,000 ton ship with 2x800 tons of escorts, but in a previous incident against 2 of the exact same ship I had the exact same problem where the mines targeted the very first ship exclusively.

Mines and for that matter any missiles that rely on sensors really, really should select targets randomly within whatever rules they work with. There's no fluff reason why all mines or missiles go after the exact same target when there are multiple identical ones on their sensors, it's purely a game mechanical issue where the "top" target is selected instead of randomly selecting from all "identical" targets.

I'd love to see a weighted random targeting chance (e.g., 67% chance of targeting the size-200 contact, 33% chance of targeting the size-100 contact), but I'd settle for simply splitting the fire between identical targets.

Missiles currently select the nearest target, but they are probably also targeting the oldest contact if more than one target is at the same distance.

Randomizing is no problem, but how should salvo target detection handle distance and size?  Should it be closest targets weighted by size, or any target within range weighted by size, or maybe targets weighted by size and range?

Bear in mind that too much dispersion will make the missiles less effective, especially against shielded targets.

[skoormit]

Any target in range, weighted by size.

[Ghostly]

Missile target distribution would be nice, but it would still necessitate incrementally placed minefields because even if an enemy fleet passing through a jump point would get targeted evenly, a single ship passing through would still trigger every mine in range. A Target Size Threshold input in the missile designer governing the minimum target size per missile allocated during sensor-based targeting, similar to the Decoy Threshold setting for ship decoys we have now, would fix this. Additionally, a threshold setting would also benefit any MFC set to point defence, as currently the only way to prevent your ships from wasting AMMs on tiny salvoes is to unassign them manually every time.

Speaking of mines (and buoys), will the AI be able to handle them in 2.6.0? My Swarms that I'm containing with mines currently either rush their survey ships into the same minefield or keep them at a jump point in range of my buoys, seemingly stuck and endlessly passive. In both cases I'd love to see them attempt a recon in force, maybe provide escorts to ships heading into areas where missiles were encountered, even if no ship contacts were detected?

[MarineAres]

Your mine-missiles need active sensors to look for new targets.

Launch Ready Ordnance placed mines seem to work as long as the first stage has no engine. I tried making a 2-stage geosurvey probe to fire at habitable worlds to avoid STO fire on occupied planets but I couldn't target the planet to fire at with MFCs. Tried to deploy the probe anyways and it just permanently deployed the first "Deployment" stage of the probe which never timed out to deploy the second stage, so I just deleted the salvo. And then the probes. I regret wasting the time to develop them and I regret the time wasted building and loading them into my scouts, since they're actually useless

You need a waypoint on the planet to fire survey drones. They should hover around the waypoint. I can't remember exactly how to construct them, i.e. if you need to have a two-stage or not, but I'm reasonably sure a one-stage wouldn't work. Someone else here should have a better idea.

[nakorkren]

#1. Static single-target selection in a fleet setting.
When a fleet of multiple identically-sized targets of the same class enters range, every mine will fire at the top-most target, overkilling then self-destructing because even with retarget capability, they won't seek out new targets. Assuming the attached image posts, yes it is a 48,000 ton ship with 2x800 tons of escorts, but in a previous incident against 2 of the exact same ship I had the exact same problem where the mines targeted the very first ship exclusively.

Mines and for that matter any missiles that rely on sensors really, really should select targets randomly within whatever rules they work with. There's no fluff reason why all mines or missiles go after the exact same target when there are multiple identical ones on their sensors, it's purely a game mechanical issue where the "top" target is selected instead of randomly selecting from all "identical" targets.

I'd love to see a weighted random targeting chance (e.g., 67% chance of targeting the size-200 contact, 33% chance of targeting the size-100 contact), but I'd settle for simply splitting the fire between identical targets.

Missiles currently select the nearest target, but they are probably also targeting the oldest contact if more than one target is at the same distance.

Randomizing is no problem, but how should salvo target detection handle distance and size?  Should it be closest targets weighted by size, or any target within range weighted by size, or maybe targets weighted by size and range?

Bear in mind that too much dispersion will make the missiles less effective, especially against shielded targets.

I'd suggest keeping it simple and just having each missile that can see one or more targets calculate a % chance of attacking each target as that target's hull size / sum of visible targets hull size. That way:
1. You don't get overkill unless you can overkill everything
2. It handles the case of lots of small targets well.
3. If you get underkill, you either did some damage to most ships, or you didn't really have enough of a mine field to do that much damage anyway.
4. It does better in the case of one or two large targets and a bunch of small targets, in that it doesn't over-assign to the small targets like 1/count(targets) would.

I did look at some more complicated approaches. The other one that seemed to produce decent results was starting with the (smallest or largest) target and assigning missiles up to a specified number of warhead points per target hull size, then moving to the next (smallest/largest) target. That could be set as a design parameter of mines, which would allow you to adjust how much over/underkill to perform at time of design.

If we're able to set mine design parameters, it would be nice to have the option to attach or ignore commercial ships, or maybe just set a speed range for things the mine will target.

[nuclearslurpee]

#1. Static single-target selection in a fleet setting.
When a fleet of multiple identically-sized targets of the same class enters range, every mine will fire at the top-most target, overkilling then self-destructing because even with retarget capability, they won't seek out new targets. Assuming the attached image posts, yes it is a 48,000 ton ship with 2x800 tons of escorts, but in a previous incident against 2 of the exact same ship I had the exact same problem where the mines targeted the very first ship exclusively.

Mines and for that matter any missiles that rely on sensors really, really should select targets randomly within whatever rules they work with. There's no fluff reason why all mines or missiles go after the exact same target when there are multiple identical ones on their sensors, it's purely a game mechanical issue where the "top" target is selected instead of randomly selecting from all "identical" targets.

I'd love to see a weighted random targeting chance (e.g., 67% chance of targeting the size-200 contact, 33% chance of targeting the size-100 contact), but I'd settle for simply splitting the fire between identical targets.

Missiles currently select the nearest target, but they are probably also targeting the oldest contact if more than one target is at the same distance.

Randomizing is no problem, but how should salvo target detection handle distance and size?  Should it be closest targets weighted by size, or any target within range weighted by size, or maybe targets weighted by size and range?

Bear in mind that too much dispersion will make the missiles less effective, especially against shielded targets.

I would make the minimal change: missiles target by the same rules they do now (i.e., largest and closest signature of the given type), they simply will choose randomly from a list of targets that are identical under this criteria. This way, missiles with target acquisition sensors function almost exactly as they do now, but are not artificially nerfed by an arbitrary bookkeeping mechanic (which ship is "on top" in memory).

[welchbloke]

#1. Static single-target selection in a fleet setting.
When a fleet of multiple identically-sized targets of the same class enters range, every mine will fire at the top-most target, overkilling then self-destructing because even with retarget capability, they won't seek out new targets. Assuming the attached image posts, yes it is a 48,000 ton ship with 2x800 tons of escorts, but in a previous incident against 2 of the exact same ship I had the exact same problem where the mines targeted the very first ship exclusively.

Mines and for that matter any missiles that rely on sensors really, really should select targets randomly within whatever rules they work with. There's no fluff reason why all mines or missiles go after the exact same target when there are multiple identical ones on their sensors, it's purely a game mechanical issue where the "top" target is selected instead of randomly selecting from all "identical" targets.

I'd love to see a weighted random targeting chance (e.g., 67% chance of targeting the size-200 contact, 33% chance of targeting the size-100 contact), but I'd settle for simply splitting the fire between identical targets.

Missiles currently select the nearest target, but they are probably also targeting the oldest contact if more than one target is at the same distance.

Randomizing is no problem, but how should salvo target detection handle distance and size?  Should it be closest targets weighted by size, or any target within range weighted by size, or maybe targets weighted by size and range?

Bear in mind that too much dispersion will make the missiles less effective, especially against shielded targets.

I would make the minimal change: missiles target by the same rules they do now (i.e., largest and closest signature of the given type), they simply will choose randomly from a list of targets that are identical under this criteria. This way, missiles with target acquisition sensors function almost exactly as they do now, but are not artificially nerfed by an arbitrary bookkeeping mechanic (which ship is "on top" in memory).

That would work for me as well. Experienced this recently - I placed a significant number of captor mines in a pattern around a JP. some of them should have taken more than 5s to reach a target as it appeared. I designed the mines with ASMs that had active sensors and could reacquire another target after the first one was killed. Still lost them all in a single 5s pulse to kill one 35k warship as 136 enemy ships transitted through the JP

If there was an option for Steve to spend more time on coding the mechanic, I would suggest the option to set a lower limit on target active sensor size so that smaller ships could be ignored (this might add some interesting options for using cloaking tech to reduce active sensor hull size). I would also use this infinite coding capacity (TM) to create a Minefield Controller Module that could be added to warships/bases to enable them to remotely trigger clusters of mines, but keep the random selection of targets. I think it would be too much of balance breaker to allow this notional controller module to nominate targets for mines. I know this suggestion is similar to a Starfire 3rd Ed technology option, but it does seem that in a world of trans-newtonian mechanics there would be sufficiently advanced autonomous (or otherwise) targetting systems to allow mines to be at least partially controlled.

Just my 2p for what it's worth

Welchbloke

[WA Lancer]

I saw a thread from 2021 about it but i'll ask anyway.

Can we be allowed to assign anyone above the ship commander rank to a flag bridge slot? Or minimum effort idea, anyone to the slot?

Its kinda a bummer when I have 30 ships in a fleet and the highest rank dudes are all the same rank. The characters above that low flag bridge slot level are no longer ever in danger in fleet engagements if they are only in admin slots. I do love reading their service history and see their ship got shot out from under them and they survived. Would be epic to see that on a Vice Admiral as he was commanding a fleet.

[nuclearslurpee]

I saw a thread from 2021 about it but i'll ask anyway.

Can we be allowed to assign anyone above the ship commander rank to a flag bridge slot? Or minimum effort idea, anyone to the slot?

Its kinda a bummer when I have 30 ships in a fleet and the highest rank dudes are all the same rank. The characters above that low flag bridge slot level are no longer ever in danger in fleet engagements if they are only in admin slots. I do love reading their service history and see their ship got shot out from under them and they survived. Would be epic to see that on a Vice Admiral as he was commanding a fleet.

I have previously suggested than flag bridges should function as radius-zero (i.e., single-system) naval admin command nodes, which solves that issue as well as the fact that the current +Reaction bonus is borderline useless and doesn't work at all for, e.g., carrier fleets relying on fighter strikes.

[Kaiser]

Looking at the current Russian-Ukrainian war I though what about we add a new building, power plants:

1) They could be of a different type with different energy output.
2) This addition would require a rework of existent building to add energy requirement to each of them.
3) Connected to previous points, I would like to have the possibility to missile-target specific building on the planet surface, it would add a lot of tactical to space bombardment and the AI should also be instructed to seek building bombardment (power plant preferred) in some cases to undermine the enemy logistic before invasion.