Defense Fleets

Waves, really?

"We're under attack, sir. This captain is well known as having one of the highest combat records around. Orders?"

"Arm Station defenses. Launch the defense fleet. Throw everything we have at him."

"Yes, sir!"

"Oh, wait."

"Yes sir?"

"Only launch six ships. If any fail, send out another, one at a time. Let's make this fun."

This method has been the one used in all three EV's, and for the purpose of EV, it works great. However, I find that it makes planetary domination (something that should be extremely daunting) far too easy. I have also found - and this was probably discovered a great deal of time ago, but I've never looked into it - that the engine will automatically launch ships in waves of 63 (or 64, I'm not sure about the player, but it will fill the system up) if the size of the defense fleet is set to anything above the maximum number of ships in a system and the fleet type is set to "Launch all at once". The spob will then proceed to launch one ship at a time every time one is destroyed.

However, I also find it unrealistic that stations should have defense fleets of 300, 500, or even more than 100 except in very special cases. Planetary spaceports, too, would have difficulty with a 400, 800, or 1200-ship defense fleet. Starships are expensive, take up space, and require pilots. A station could realistically house 25 ships, larger stations could house up to 50. Most spaceports, besides capitals, could probably house 50-125 ships max. Most of these ships would probably be fighters, with several higher-end combat ships and a few capital ships. With these odds, a very skilled pilot with one heckofa-ship or personal fleet could probably do some damage and successfully dominate a station or spaceport.

...But it would be terribly hard. Even 25 fighters at once is a daunting move, although with the proper fleet of capital ships it could probably be done quite easily. Having tried fighting 64 ships (or so) at once, it turns out that it is indeed very difficult, but once ammunition is exhausted combat just becomes tedious, but not-so tedious as it is in smaller fleets of nine or less. I find this representation of planetary domination somewhat more realistic and (obviously) more challenging. I certainly don't criticise the original method, but the project that I am currently working on will, in the next release, most likely use this technique.

Thoughts?

This post has been edited by Crusader Alpha : 14 November 2008 - 03:01 AM

Launching large defense fleets- I have found it to be by far the easiest way to lock up the engine. I had KFL set up to launch large numbers of ships at once, and considering the size of many of my capital ships the engine wouldn't even draw most of them- the ones that it did draw just sat there on top of the launching spob and did nothing, nor was any movement by anything happening. The only thing that I could do was quit.

Who's to say that when you demand tribute from a planet, that multiple spaceports don't launch their ships?

If we assume capital ships to be actual capital ships (> 500m in length) it would be unrealistic to assume they are waiting on a planet, since taking off would place quite a strain on engines (you have to accelerate a rather big lump of solid material to EV), and an atmospheric entry would probably one of the last things you'd want to do after the battle. It would also severely hamper the fleet's ability to respond to threats (hotshot pilots, wannabe dictators) rapidly. To offer the fastest response possible, all ship classes would have to be launched simultaneously, sending fighters to engage on their own, leaving corvettes and then frigates to fend for themselves, and, in the end, send capships into battle without CQB support from fighters and medium sized ships. This would obviously be a Bad Thing. Alternatively, the could time their launches in order to engage as a group, leaving the agressor enough time to commence orbital bombardment and other pleasantries.

It would therefore be logical to assume that garrison Capships orbit planets (and, of course, stations), while fighters and possibly medium sized ship classes would launch from the planet. Stations would probably only have fighters on board. Depending on the importance of the Station or Planet in question, this constantly present defense fleet would be from no capital ships and only a single medium sized ship with several fighters form say, a listening post to a small armada of capitals supported by dozens of medium sized ships and myriads of fighters for capital planets. Theese would, in EVN terms "launch" immediately. An interstellar empire would, naturally, have several strategic reserve fleets, of different levels and sizes, standing by, a small one per star group, and gradually larger ones for larger administrative sectors. These fleets would reinforce the garrisoned planetary defense fleet. The logical in-game approach to those would be to keep a continuous stream of gövt reinforcements pouring into the system during the fight against the defense fleet. Which EVN blocks during the battle. So to simulate reinforcement fleets (which would not arrive all together, as they would have to jump from their home base to the point of insurgency), it would be logical to launch a rather large ammount of ships at first (10-20) with them being replaced as they are destroyed. Of course, this way the ships are replaced one by one, which is unrealistic.

I haven't had any engine problems with launching ships, even capital ships, but I do agree with many of the points being made here.

One way or the other, I'd like to set up a more realistic method of planetary domination for the Acheron expansion. I do suppose that I can be a lot more creative than launching all ships at once, but I'm not sure how to execute some of my ideas. I'd like to have in-space weapons platforms possibly already exist around stellars (in spob form, not ship form) or have the stellar release mobile weapon platforms (ship form) when attacked. If there were a way to get multiple spobs to launch defense fleets (wait, can a spob have a fighter bay as a weapon?) then I could have in-system deployment bays of some sort that could launch defense fleets for them. Perhaps stations could have shield generators, but I can't explain on-planet spaceports having shield generators, so perhaps there is a way to make a stellar un-dominatable? This way, the player could take over space stations but be unable to take over planets.

If anyone has any ideas on how to modify the planetary domination system, I'm open to ideas. I'll be testing some things out myself.

This probably wouldn't work for most plugs and TCs, but in Colosseum instead of a defense fleet, the spobs launch a single, unique ship. These unique ships are far tougher than the run of the mill opponent, essentially they are bosses and pose quite a challenge to the player. This works for Colosseum due to the nature of the TC and and its very low number of spobs (for all spobs to have a unique vessel, you need an individual ship and fleet resource for it), but technically and logically, it probably won't work for most plugs.

Actually though, I am contemplating defense platforms that double as ship carriers for planets, and then shielded stations with station weaponry for stations. The shields work relatively nicely; the defense fleet for the station is a stationary ship that has 1 armor and x amount of shields, and looks like a shield. Varying station shield ability can be modified using different numbers of these "shield ships" per station. Planets launch defense platforms that are heavily shielded, armored, and armed, and carry several fighters (or even corvettes, if one decided to make it so) for defensive purposes. Once all defense platforms and ships are destroyed, the planet (or spaceport, in Acheron) will respond by agreeing to tribute. Basically these defense platforms work similarly to the unique vessel idea, except that a new ship type is only needed for each government.

For stations with both shields and defense platforms, pers resources can be set to always appear in the system with the station. Since weapon's platforms would likely be somewhat mobile, there wouldn't be too much of a problem with the platform always appearing somewhere else in the system.

I'll keep thinking on this.

I like it.

If you have space mines in your scenario then the player can drop them over the planet before demanding tribute. That way the entire first wave in instantly weakened (or killed, as in the case of EVO Space Mines or Miranu Defense Pods.) If there is only one wave, the battle is then trivial.

I used that method when I dominated Council Station. Load up on 8 Miranu Defense Systems and as much ammo as possible. Drop the pods over the station. Demand tribute. Wait for the first wave of ships to die. Land on Gadzair. Leave Gadzair. Repeat until out of defense pods, then restock with them. Actually, I also had escorts that killed some of the second wave, so it went a bit faster. But you get the idea.

In EV's defense, the game was made to make it hard to dominate planets (or at least a challenge). Using fighters would make it to easy against a fleet of capital ships. JoshTigerheart's idea of unique ships was pretty good, except I think the idea should be tweaked. Instead of a unique ship, you could use a corvettes, light warships and a few assault vessels ship. Light and compact enough to fit hundreds in stations or planets, powerful enough to take out a couple of capital warships but quick enough to pursue the fastest fighter.

Quote

"Only launch six ships. If any fail, send out another, one at a time. Let's make this fun."

I find the waves quite realistic, you don't send two hundred battleships after a fighter, but you want to take out a carrier. This is also realistic because ships need time to get the crew ready, the weapons checked, and the engines throttled. The first wave leaves so early because they are probably in orbit guarding the planet or station.

Also, why would a planet stay dominated? The larger defense fleet are a balance to that.

What about invisible planet-launched ships that deploy visible ships to simulate reinforcements coming in during the battle? It wouldn't be part of the defense fleet, but the weapon that the planet/station fires at the hostile ship.

I haven't tried setting a planet's weapon to a fighter bay yet. One thing that could be a big problem, if the game engine does allow one to do it, is that planets have no ammuniton limits, so there would really be no way to keep it from filling up the system with invisible (or visible) fighters.

I have effectively found a way to make station domination quite difficult, doable (kind of) and somewhat realistic. It's basically shield generator idea that I noted above (which works great) and stationary weaponry (in my case I'm using ammo-based station-only missiles; they're quite nice). I am going to move on to planets now, and see what I can do about defense platforms.

This post has been edited by Crusader Alpha : 15 November 2008 - 11:30 PM

A very lengthy burst reload could help.

Ah, yes, it would.

But can planets even use fighter bays as weapons?

I guess I can find out...

Edit: I can't get a stellar to launch ships from a ship-launching weapon. I doubt this is possible.

This post has been edited by Crusader Alpha : 16 November 2008 - 12:43 AM

I believe the nova bible says that spobs cannot use fighter bays.

The Nova bible doesn't say anything about fighters, but it does say something interesting about defense fleets:

DefCount	 The number of ships in the defense fleet. If you set this number
			   to be above 1000, ships will be launched from the planet or
			   station in waves. The last number in this field is the number of
			   ships in each wave, and the first 3-4 numbers (minus 1 from the
			   first digit) are the total number of ships in the planet's
			   fleet. For example, a value of 1082 would be four waves of two
			   ships for a total of eight. A value of 2005 would create waves
			   of five ships each, with 100 ships total in the planet's defense
			   fleet.

So in the stock scenario, Earth uses 7006, to launch 600 ships in waves of 6, but what happens with values of, say, 1279? If the bible is correct, Nova would launch 27 ships in waves of 9. It should be noted that 9 is the maximum number of ships one can have in a wave, as higher values will just be assumed as part of the number of ships. (100 ships in waves of 11 would be 2011, but Nova would put out 101 ships one at a time.)

Indeed, this appears to be one of the more limiting aspects of the Nova engine.