Waiter, Hold the Spam Please!

posted on September 13th, 2009, 9:54 pm

EVE helps prevent spamming (by guilds) by basically not allowing "big gun" type weapons to hit little targets. FO has this to a degree (with the torpedo miss chance against little targets), but it could be cranked up a notch (say, by also adding a miss chance to phasers) giving a counter to all late game units by massing cheaper early game units. This would in turn require the late game units to be accompanied by some earlier game units (increasing fleet diversity and giving some life to those early units late game).

This is a good idea. Someone (I believe it was K_Merse, but I can't actually remember...) implemented it in their TOS/TMP mod and it worked fantastically - combined with clever modding of the "Assault Wall" formation it made for fantastic fleet battles... Or should I say "Fleet Operations", no?

posted on September 13th, 2009, 10:13 pm

Well I think spamming in some situations is acceptable. Are we talking about using only 1 unit in a game? Cause eventually we'll have to tech up. Once you've teched up and have a lot of resources I think spamming 1 unit is ok. You aren't gonna detech from sovereins back to excellsior IIs if you have more resources than you know what to do with. Also I think saber spam is ok. If u are against Dominion and if they ram you then you need something that is small, fast and cheap. If not, bugs in large numbers can easily defeat sabers.

posted on September 13th, 2009, 10:42 pm

I have to disagree - if you have the resources, then spamming sovs is only acceptable because that's the most efficient way of defeating your enemy.

But it's boring. It looks boring and it plays boring. Boring because they're all the same.

If you were forced to churn out mixed fleets even at that stage of the game, then it wouldn't happen! Players will find the easiest and most efficient way of winning, which in the end game has always been by spamming your top-level ship. If the best way was to combine ships of different classes (eg by making the larger ships always miss the smaller ships, although that's extreme) then they'd do that

posted on September 14th, 2009, 7:49 am

Just please (please) avoid the per ship unit cap, like Homeworld did. I really really hated that aspect of that game... and I have a (fairly) high opinion of Homeworld as a 3-D RTS.

Actually, if you guys want to mod Homeworld into FleetOps...

posted on September 14th, 2009, 9:21 am

I think the best way to avoid spamming is hard capping. All ships should have a limit in accordance with the type(cruisers and destroyers a larger one, while battleships and support vessels a smaller one). I think this will make the game a lot more interesting, as every ship in the fleet would be important. This will also give a more tactical approach to FO, as players will have to make the best use possible out of their fleets.

posted on September 14th, 2009, 10:27 am

Just please (please) avoid the per ship unit cap, like Homeworld did. I really really hated that aspect of that game... and I have a (fairly) high opinion of Homeworld as a 3-D RTS.

As opposed to a total unit cap it's light-years ahead.

In AI War (an awesome game by the way, you guys should try it), the game is built around per-ship unit caps and is balanced so that you need to supplement your high level ships with low level forces in order to win. something like this could work quite well for fleetops, but i'm not sure how it would work with the smaller ship caps.

posted on September 14th, 2009, 10:29 am

we will not introduce hard unit caps for regular vessels, as that does not avoid spamming.. it forces a player to stop production, but within the given unit cap, the same spamming situation arises, or players will just try to max all unit caps. thats not a solution at all, and we don't like hard unit caps

posted on September 14th, 2009, 1:26 pm

well, I think spam can be avoided when you have hard caps. Think about the following fleet config:

- 8 sabre
- 8 monsoon
- 6 akira
- 6 intrepid
- 4 canaveral
- 4 sovereign
- 4 excelsior II
- 4 defiant
- 4 remoore

A fleet capped like this will avoid spam very effectively.

posted on September 14th, 2009, 1:31 pm

that would not avoid spam. Every player would just build the exact same fleet, send it for attacks and then rebuild it. Close to zero diversity. Thats nothing we want. Just look at Homeworld or - a bit less extreme cause of a larger cap - StarCraft and WarCraft. A good balancing does not need Unit Caps, in my opinion. They just limit a players possibilities and strategies

No hard unit caps for regular vessels in Fleet Operations. Never. Thats something i can promise

posted on September 14th, 2009, 1:33 pm

Those limits you suggest are the same as the 'Tactical Assault' limits... which screwed the game entirely.

posted on September 14th, 2009, 2:02 pm

Well, there should be a spamming ship for each race. I usually recommend the first ship in the 1st yard of each race (except for Rommies, those things are unbearable *shivers*)

posted on September 14th, 2009, 5:25 pm

that would not avoid spam. Every player would just build the exact same fleet, send it for attacks and then rebuild it. Close to zero diversity. Thats nothing we want. Just look at Homeworld or - a bit less extreme cause of a larger cap - StarCraft and WarCraft. A good balancing does not need Unit Caps, in my opinion. They just limit a players possibilities and strategies

No hard unit caps for regular vessels in Fleet Operations. Never. Thats something i can promise

Going straight into the guide

I agree completely, as this is why I disliked Starcraft, Warcraft, AoE ... AoE III, DoW I etc... a hard population cap just meant that as long as you had enough production facilities you could instantly rebuild your entire battle force... given enough resources. Turtling kicked arse needless to say, because turrets were the only thing that did not occupy population normally. Not to mention of course that caps as bad as these are boring.

posted on September 14th, 2009, 5:28 pm

No hard unit caps for regular vessels in Fleet Operations. Never. Thats something i can promise

and thats why we love you guys...

posted on September 14th, 2009, 6:07 pm

Besides, a pop-cap would have stopped me from doing what I just did.  2 AI borg were slugging it out, and I had been basically turtling because of them.  The one path into my base was cluttered with Cho'Naq and Negh'var.  Well, I gathered up all the Negh'var (turned out to be enough for 2 full fleets of them exactly) and decided to try my luck.  It was like a replay of the DS9 episode where the Klingons punched straight through the Dominion fleet.  Not only did my pure Negh'var spam succeed where all other attempts had failed, but came out of it with all ships intact but one, most of them double-gold officers at the end of the battle.  Took them back for repair and recrew, and went on to sail them straight through the Borg bases.

Pretty, pretty Negh'var...so reliable, so mean to the Borg.

posted on September 14th, 2009, 6:10 pm

Besides, a pop-cap would have stopped me from doing what I just did.  2 AI borg were slugging it out, and I had been basically turtling because of them.  The one path into my base was cluttered with Cho'Naq and Negh'var.  Well, I gathered up all the Negh'var (turned out to be enough for 2 full fleets of them exactly) and decided to try my luck.  It was like a replay of the DS9 episode where the Klingons punched straight through the Dominion fleet.  Not only did my pure Negh'var spam succeed where all other attempts had failed, but came out of it with all ships intact but one, most of them double-gold officers at the end of the battle.  Took them back for repair and recrew, and went on to sail them straight through the Borg bases.

Pretty, pretty Negh'var...so reliable, so mean to the Borg.

haha. A veteran negh'var is nothing to muss with... it should be better in the next patch also... can't wait.