Removing Manual Target System

posted on July 29th, 2012, 4:54 pm

I've got a question, if all the ships fire to high-defensive targets, that seems like a disadvantage, because the critical mass for low defensive ships is much lower then for the high defensive ships, that the other player can still get them out, because of this it seems that someone who uses the micromanagment to manual target low defensive ships has a clear advantage against somone who doesn't use it

So i would request to remove the manual target system, that no one can use this, this would change the gameplay in a way that make it similar to chess

I've noticed too, that it was payed attention, that everything has a logic background like the ECM for the torpedoes, how is the plan, to explain this, i think to let ships fire on other ships they might not be able to take out don't make sense to me, just curious

posted on July 29th, 2012, 10:31 pm

Your thought is understandable, but right now a player who uses manual targeting has an advantage as well above a player who doesn't. Imagine a situation in which you build Intrepids and the enemy starts some Sang's, and you counter that with starting Monsoons.
That's where the game begins: He can micro his Sang's to shoot solely on your intrepids, but he will be unable to move. The second he gives the move order his ships will target the monsoons again and the kiting ability of the Sang becomes almost useless as they take so little damage.
This scenario shows you that the manual targeting is already limited by having ships freeze in place while doing it.

Also, I'm not sure if the targeting between all available defensive ships too shoot at is completly random or if its like "smallest defensive ship->medium defensive ship->biggest defensive ship->other ships"

I think taking random targets out of the defensive ship pool would make the game more interesting as you can't make your entire defensive ship-pack Sang-kiting proof with just adding one monsoon. If you understand what I'm trying to say (sometimes I don't know either.)

posted on July 30th, 2012, 2:27 am

You could possibly add some passive to all defensive ships that even when microing theres a chance that one ship would shoot at a different defensive ship instead of the one selected. or something like that. So it would lvl the field in which even if your targeting the really crap ship in the back theres a chance your ship will stop attacking it and hit another ship instead.
But i could see a problem with that in early game though.
But it is an understandable idea and in a pvp match microing your battles is the most important part if your just sending ships to there death you are more than likely gonna lose, where as someone who is microing will easily have the advantage.

posted on July 30th, 2012, 2:29 am

All Defensive ships are counted equally, regardless of total hitpoints. However, lowest hitpoints remaining is still targeted first (your ships will automatically fire at the most damaged warships of a given type). Thus, if you have some Calypso and Monsoon together, one will be randomly attacked first. If Calypso has 99% shields remaining and Monsoon is undamaged, Calypso will be shot at first.

posted on July 30th, 2012, 9:28 am

Yep. We like micro management and we don't want to take that opportunity away. What we don't liked in older versions of Fleet Ops (well and many other rts) is the strong emphasize in hit and run, kiting and move-and-shoot. These tactics work more with the game mechanics instead of deploying a strategy.
A strategy game should be around evolving an actual strategy: Where to fight, where to pin down your opponent and when to flee (and many other decisions of course). The Defensive profile helps to bring these aspects more into regular gameplay, without diminishing the power of kiting completely.
Remember that there is also an offensive profile which deals area damage no matter which target it chooses for its main volleys, which can be used to "shoot through" defensive vessels and hit the weaker ships nearby, even while on the run. Yet, if you want to chose your targets, you will have to stand and fight it. That also seems to fit well to what i remember from the Dominion War episodes. When they tried to bring this and that down with galaxy wing one, two or three they were always flying right in the action! :woot

//PS:
Yep, Dominus is right. All vessels are targeted based on their percentage health now, not on their actual shield strength. Which means that a saber is targeted with the same priority as a sovereign as long as they are both undamaged. The ships themselves are sorted in "target priority levels". all defensive vessels have highest priority, all offensive, allround support etc middle priority. Some effects might also cause a ship to get lowest target priority. The new Evasive Patterns special ability of the Intrepid, for example, causes her to drop, making even normal allround ships tanks for her.

posted on July 30th, 2012, 10:02 am

1) sabres are going to be same profile as sovvie i presume, let's assume this for 2...

2) so if i have a fleet of 1 sovvie and 9 sabres, all i have to do is shoot the sovvie once or twice with a couple of my sabres to lower its shield % to 99 or 98, then in battle the slightly damaged sovvie will be first hit over sabres every time.

ie one can force a late game defensive ship to tank for early game defensive ships by damaging it.

3) i hope this evasive patterns you talk about is gonna replace trico, it seems to fit the zippy intrepid (advertised in the first episode for its engines) a bit more.

posted on July 30th, 2012, 11:39 am

yep, both the saber and the sovereign are all-round vessels.

yep, the trick you described is possible in theory, although shield regeneration will work against you. One single controlled shot on a saber would also deny that strategy, as the tanking priority is based on percentage and not on actual health, and the saber's shields drop faster (less total shield strength). Yet, it is possible, although quite risky.
Defensive Profile vessels work far more solid, especially if offensive vessels are involved. They deal area damage and cause the (percentage of) shields of sabers to drop faster than sovereigns. It is a good idea to always have some defensive ships with you, as it is very hard to predict which of your weaker vessels will draw hostile fire if no 'tank' is around and you are on the move.

Yep, the Evasive Patterns replace the Tricobalt Torpedoes. In Voyager the Intrepid showed some nice stunts evading hostile ships and weapons, that's what inspired this ability Yet we still think the tricobalts are a very iconic ability for the Intrepid and we won't just throw them away. More about that in a future news post

posted on July 30th, 2012, 2:17 pm

One single controlled shot on a saber would also deny that strategy

The enemy has to micro that first shot every time, though. Which is effort that they are forced to do instead of microing special weapons. Also all their ships stop moving. and it cost me practically nothing.

i was also thinking about doing this with def profile ships. monsoon is early game def, and i don't know what late game def profile ship feds will have (i really thought it would be the sovvie with its armour plates). lets assume descent. taking the descent's shield % down to 96ish will cause it to tank for undamaged monsoons. the enemy will certainly not accept this, and will start force attacking a monsoon so that auto target now goes after the weakened monsoon, but if they relied on auto target for the first shot (like when fast decloaking), the first volley they fired at the descent is wasted as they had little hope of destroying the descent. and every time they destroy (or force the retreat of) a monsoon, as long as the descent hasn't recovered fully, it will absorb a volley of auto target fire, the enemy has to manually pick a monsoon every time, making moving a pain. forcing the enemy to do lots of micro is the aim.

when facing cloakers there'd be an incentive to constantly keep your late game defensive ships with 96ish shields so that the free volley during the decloak will go to a high defence target.

to avoid the aoe weakening a bunch of monsoons, i'd try separate the descent from the pack, leading to...

how wide is the aoe from offensive ships gonna be?

posted on July 30th, 2012, 2:30 pm

Yep, the Descent is a defensive vessel.

I see your point. In our test games, that strategy did not provide a reasonable profit for the work you have to do to deploy it. The defensive value ratios between ships are quite different from what we have at the moment. Even the Monsoon and the Calypso as being smaller 'tanks' than the Descent can take quite a punch and aren't toasted away from a decloaker volley that easily. Simply withdrawing a damaged vessel is a lot easier, as vessels will only pick from vessels in range and not follow withdrawing vessels until told to do so.
Yet we will take a close look on this issue, as we definitely want to avoid shooting your own stuff. We will incorporate mechanics to deny that if it should evolve being a reasonable strategy.

The critical hit area is about half short range.

posted on July 30th, 2012, 2:38 pm

I have not fully understood the point how adding the defensive profil improves the strategy usage (@Optec)


Despite of this I see some problems with this configuration without removing the manual target system:

-offensive vessels might really help, but i doubt that it is possible for this vessels to survive if they are not always moving, because manual targeting is just a problem for them, such as defending a base (expansion) by mixed offensive and defensive vessels, the attacking player will want to kill them first with stats like 17/11 like the brel before stats like 19/19, or more defensive vessels, so I don't know if this really will be an advantage
-Using here an example, The Romulan Singularity Refit (6/48) could be a support vessel, three of them, with lowered shields to ~80% and 2s claok always moving could become a problem, for anyone who trys to attack, of course I don't want forget to mind, that the Romulans would be pretty stupid, if they don't declare their Singularity Refit as a defensive vessel, paint a big "X" on its hull, and write under it, easy readable for the enemy, "Please target this ship first"
-Furthermore, for matches with more then 2 players, if someone gets a cube, and someone else adding 10-20 sangs, this flying starbase could become unkillable, if it just not stop moving, because every ship would just target the cube, and had its problems with the sangs

posted on July 30th, 2012, 3:35 pm

Yet we will take a close look on this issue, as we definitely want to avoid shooting your own stuff. We will incorporate mechanics to deny that if it should evolve being a reasonable strategy.

Yeah, shooting your own ships never happened in canon. probably because consoles exploded and killed redshirts if two ships flew within a 100 km of each other, let alone shot at each other.

thanks for the info.

posted on July 30th, 2012, 3:58 pm

Shooting your own never happened in canon? Were we watching the same Klingons? They managed to pull it off in Sacrifice of Angels, blew up a B'rel with another B'rel.

I'm surprised it doesn't happen when the B'rel or SuS'a' has it's special active.

posted on July 30th, 2012, 4:03 pm

Shooting your own never happened in canon? Were we watching the same Klingons? They managed to pull it off in Sacrifice of Angels, blew up a B'rel with another B'rel.

I'm surprised it doesn't happen when the B'rel or SuS'a' has it's special active.

lol i prefer to think of that a visual cockup rather than something intended in the story. space is big, accidentally hitting your allies would probably take malice.

posted on July 30th, 2012, 4:10 pm

Not that malice or honor-induced stupidity is anything new or in short supply with Klingons. Probably not something that happens (often) with most Klingons, but under TaQ'roja or with their style of earning promotions...

posted on July 30th, 2012, 4:25 pm

nope, no deal, still not buying it. it's even free when you buy that all the ships in the dominion war went into battle with their shields turned off. and i'm not buying that either.

I can just imagine ross talking to weyoun over subspace before the battle saying "we'll turn our shields off if you do the same, that way the battle will be over more quickly and i can get home and finish my holonovel, the winner will still be the same, we'll just arrive at victory quicker."