Changing FO's Early Game

posted on May 30th, 2010, 10:23 pm

Most online players know that the initial build order and how fast you can execute it will prove to be the most important aspect of a game, because it decides what units you will begin producing and thus how the next few minutes will turn out (as you are set in your technology tree).

However, most maps are large enough that your scout will only get to your opponent’s base after they have already begun their first yard and/or research station. This has the consequence of locking you into a build order as soon as the game begins without any chance to adapt to your opponent’s build (or even their race!) beforehand, because you absolutely cannot waste a single second.

Which brings us to why this important. Fleet Operations, like many other RTS’s, lets you begin with a large amount of starting resources. This allows you to have the flexibility to begin producing units within the first minute of a game. This, in a pinch, is the problem. There is no chance to scout out your opponent immediately – to figure out what structures they will build – because if you wait that 20 seconds or so that it takes you to scurry across the map before building, they’ll have ships 20 seconds before you. Unless you know the person and know what faction they picked, you cannot adapt your strategy to a specific race until after you have scouted – and you cannot waste that time, so you must build immediately (which can give you a severe disadvantage at the very start of the game).

This means that players often choose one set build order, and stick with it for an eternity, because if a player wants to win, you have to choose the build order that gives you the greatest chance of winning out of all the possible factions and starting orders that you in turn will face. I can only imagine that this will get much more complex with the race redo and with avatars becoming more different from each other.

Personally, I like the freedom to alter my strategy in response to how my opponent plays without losing time – but right now, it can be a guessing game (especially with some factions' unique building styles). 

I think there are at least two ways to remedy this:

The first is to simply start out with zero resources. After 30 seconds, the current amount of funds is transferred to you, giving just enough time to scout out your opponent on most maps. (I prefer this way  ).

Another way (which is more… game changing, and thus possibly frustrating  ) is if the starting resources were reduced to pay for just two Mining Refineries and potentially two additional Freighters then not only would early game scouting be much more important, but there would be the opportunity to change your build order based on what your opponent decides to do first.

posted on May 30th, 2010, 10:31 pm

sounds good to me. my support for this suggestion

posted on May 30th, 2010, 10:44 pm

Excellent ideas, I too am more in favor of the first one.

posted on May 31st, 2010, 1:44 am

i think that the lowering of resources should be an option because I don't want to wait an extra 5/10 minutes to be able to begin my research on a 3v3 or 4v4 map...

posted on May 31st, 2010, 2:04 am

I like both options, though I would prefer the second one be a separate game mode. Starting with just enough to build a mining station sounds like a fun challenge, but that would probably cause matches to draw on longer then they should in a standard game. I'd like to eliminate the problem too, as there are times I'm not able determine what ships my enemy is building and thus I can't determine what to counter with. This problem is even more prevalent in Sigma since it's very counter-heavy.

posted on May 31st, 2010, 6:51 am

Very interesting, Dom


  You and I discussed this the other day when I said how frustrating it is when a build basically counters another build and you can only KNOW if you got countered within like a 5 second window of scouting/looking, didn't we? 

  I'm very glad you brought it up either way.  It would definitely be a major change for factions that rely heavily on teching quickly (feds going SFC or double yard) or factions that have to build very quickly to get certain ships.

  It might also require taking a look at what ships are available right away, what structures need to be made (Borg), and what tier 1 vessels counter what (Dominion ftw ).

  Overall I think you bring up a great point.  Sadly, the early game flexibility for 1 v 1 is extremely limited.  Non-cloaking races also have great difficulty in that regard because scouting the opponent's build ques and such requires much more attention and effort than a race that can drop a scout off and know forever .

posted on May 31st, 2010, 7:35 am

Cloaking races will hate this, but would it be better to change scout cloaking into a researchable technology?  That would force cloaking players to micro their scouts as well.

posted on May 31st, 2010, 7:50 am

Don't think that's necessary .

  Maybe if a scout's sensor range was decreased while it was cloaked?  That would give the cloaking race an incentive to either A. have to use more scouts, or B. keep the same vulnerability as the others by staying visible.

  Dunno if it's REALLY such an issue.

[Drrrrrr]

posted on May 31st, 2010, 8:48 am

Last edited by Drrrrrr on May 31st, 2010, 10:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

One of the major points in scouting strategies is, that you dont see what technology (ships) where researched. Maybe a visualization of the strategy path is useful. And starting resources can be altered too imo.

Resources should be enough to build two mines and yard as well as 2 frighters.

Another point might be to increase the number of frighters to gather resources. Currently you only need 3 (2) to get maximum. This is usually achieved in the first 5min of any game. I would prefer a solution more like Starcraft where you need to build more workers till you run on maximum. That way you allow more strategies like "Skip 2 miners in the beginning in favor of another early ship".

posted on May 31st, 2010, 10:13 am

you can guess by watching their research station builds and what they research. so if an enemy researches tricobalt torpedo u can bet you will soon face intrepids.

i prefer the idea of the resources being transferred after a delay. if you start off with little resources it will take minutes just to get enough resources for your second mining station. it will be very boring in early game. i like the idea of the delay that dom proposed first.

maybe little freighters could warp in and deliver your resources, maybe in stages.

posted on May 31st, 2010, 12:17 pm

myleswolfers, I really like your idea. You may start with just the resources for two mining-stations and the first few feighters are warped in. They are not really transporting the resources as load but just changing your stocks as they warp in.

posted on May 31st, 2010, 12:21 pm

ideally it would be a freighter with extra large amounts of resources, which warps in delivers those res at a mining station (faster than normal cos the res are already refined) and then warps back out.

maybe the first couple warp in freighters could just be normal freighters with normal full load which unload quickly at the mining station delivering some res and then stays as one of your normal freighters. then 30 seconds later a bigger freighter delivers a larger amount which tops u up to current starting res and then warps back out, as its a specialist freighter for setting up bases.

it would improve the time available to scout, yet still leave u with enough res to start a base after a couple minutes.

posted on May 31st, 2010, 12:50 pm

Again, i need to say i like this one too.

posted on May 31st, 2010, 2:05 pm

this sounds good  i like this idea

posted on May 31st, 2010, 2:22 pm

I dont think some ppl get the idea. Its about choosing if u want to invest in economy or ships. If freighters will be warped in with res whats the point of the change. its like getting the economy for free so everybody will just build ships straight away.
the starcraft mentioned b4 is a bit different as you can easily play of 1 base just building more workers. the economy of FO is a bit different so i dont know if this can work well but i would like to see some change to early game.

btw, from my sig:

4. You have limited starting resources for a reason

This one is aimed at those Command and Conquer players out there. C&C games traditionally give the players an enormous amount of resources to start with. This often allows them to get production structures up and producing units within the first 60 seconds of the game. StarCraft & StarCraft 2 start you out with just enough resources to build an extra gatherer, and then you have to constantly re-invest the initial amounts of money you get into more gatherers + supply increases.

The result is that the early game of StarCraft feels kind of slow to build up, and boring/tedious. However, there’s an important benefit to this design: it allows scouting to become a true strategic element of the gameplay. In Command and Conquer games, the resources you’re given require you to spend them and commit to a build order before you even know what your opponent is doing; this results in a fair amount of build order poker and blind guessing. With StarCraft’s paradigm, players can use their starting gatherers to scout each other well before getting through their first tier in the tech tree and well before any units are on the field. The effect is a game where scouting leads to more strategic level adapting rather than blind guessing.