Ship Battles - Movement of Vessels

posted on April 14th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Hello, I just wanted to know if eventually, there will be a feature that allows ships, during battles, to move in a pattern while firing, just like from the original Armada. You know, such as the 'Cloverleaf' or the simple circle pattern.

Because, I was just thinking it was odd-looking how the ships, when fighting each other simply stay there, taking the fire.

I'm sorry to criticize your mod after you've put a ridiculous amount of blood, sweat and tears into it  , but I just wanted to know if that were remotely possible. I apologize if this has been posted before.


Thank you very much.

posted on April 14th, 2010, 6:19 pm

There is a way to tell ships that they can't stop, so they would be constantly be moving even while in battle. the only problem is that the ships will run into eachother.   If that could be fixed, and give them the ability to use the "stop" button while useing this mode, then it could be pretty cool.

I don't know if they will add the attack formations back in though.  That might be the simpler solution.

posted on April 14th, 2010, 6:28 pm

Hello, I just wanted to know if eventually, there will be a feature that allows ships, during battles, to move in a pattern while firing, just like from the original Armada. You know, such as the 'Cloverleaf' or the simple circle pattern.

Because, I was just thinking it was odd-looking how the ships, when fighting each other simply stay there, taking the fire.

I'm sorry to criticize your mod after you've put a ridiculous amount of blood, sweat and tears into it  , but I just wanted to know if that were remotely possible. I apologize if this has been posted before.


Thank you very much.

No need to apologize. 1. It's your opinion. 2. Many share your opinion

Also devs know about it and this topic was discussed since Beta 2.0. I don't know why they removed that feature. Maybe it caused issues like the notoric Armada II "out of synch" that was a game stopping issue. Optec could tell us what are the future plans of that concern?

posted on April 14th, 2010, 6:31 pm

yep, we want to improve movement and pathfinding in future patches, but thats a quite nasty topic

posted on April 14th, 2010, 6:37 pm

Because, I was just thinking it was odd-looking how the ships, when fighting each other simply stay there, taking the fire.

That makes me kinda wish there was some hulking brute of a ship designed to do broadsides.  Well, other than the Cube.

posted on April 14th, 2010, 6:40 pm

I alwayse thought there should be a way to get ships to only fire out the sides and circle aroud their enemy to fight,  it would be soo cool

I attempted it with my achilles, but it didn't work

posted on April 14th, 2010, 6:42 pm

Thinking about it, most Romulan ships technically follow the principle of broadsides.  It's just that instead of making their ships long, they put huge wings on them so they're wide, and 'broadsides' is forward.

posted on April 14th, 2010, 7:51 pm

From the FAQ's of the guide 

Why aren't formations from Armada II or the Director's Cut from Armada I present?

The Armada I “Director’s Cut” was a nice addition, but the coding was modified/removed for Armada II. Consequently the developer’s possibilities are quite limited in this situation. DOca Cola has played around a bit to get that feature back in Armada II, as it basically is in the formations menu where you can select an attack pattern that is exactly the movement you have from Armada I. Although he made a rough implementation, it would need a lot more tweaking and testing before it is really usable again. Formation attack patterns (like the clover leaf) would be possible, but they don't work with Fleet Operations currently and are not programmed that well in Armada II in the first place. Thus the only other option is to use the different movement autonomies (which have been enhanced) to set up AI scripts for your vessels. Eventually there will be additional "normal" formations, but the developer’s are not sure if the original ones will find their way back in.

Besides the programming issues, there are also gameplay problems. Ships in these formations or under the influence of the “Director’s Cut” would start moving in to attack other vessels and so lose the advantage of long range weaponry. It also makes your ships harder to control and more frustrating. Seeing your small vessels fly to an enemy because of a "coolness move" and then come into the weapon range of an Outpost is not that cool if they could have stayed out of range and killed the opponent there. As a consequence, a better fighting/movement system is on the “to do” list, but it will take quite a while.

posted on April 16th, 2010, 11:52 am

Thanks very much for the help, I look forward to future patches. 

posted on April 18th, 2010, 5:28 am

Love the name, HamsterCat   :fox:

posted on April 18th, 2010, 5:41 am

altho not technically in the mod the a2 attack patterns are easy to readd back in (well they were in fo3.1.1)

posted on April 18th, 2010, 7:56 am

Well, what about this idea:

Every ship got a mass and a speed. If you are a sitting duck, every weapon system will hit you. This is why stations are always hit. If you have a small scout that is attacked by torps, what would you expect? Right, that the small scout when its flying around wouldnt be hit by torps, because he is too small and too fast. But what, when he also sits? I would say: The hitchance would be 100%.

So we have a forumlar:

Hitchance of a torpedo = (Mass[ship]*(1-movementspeed)*(egm_factor)*hit_accuracy_modyfier)

The mass of the ship is definied but a Value between 1 and 0. A small scout would have something about 0,3 and a dreadnought would have something 0,95.

The movementspeed is a value generated by the ACTUAL speed of the ship. This value can be in reference between 0 and 1, while 0.99 is the speed of the fastest possible ship available.

The egm_factor is a factor only ships get, that have some sort of egm_phalanx. This value would be something about 0,8 or something like that.

The hit_accuracy_modyfier depends on the torps you use (single, burstfire, race like borg) and the experience a ship got. A good crew can hit an enemy far better than greenhorns.

Lets take three examples:

The scout:
The scout got a mass of 0.3 and a speed of 0.9 without egm (1). It is attacked by a two silver bar cruiser that got a single mode torp.

So we have Hitchance of a torpedo = (Mass[ship]*(1-movementspeed)*(egm_factor)*hit_accuracy_modyfier)
X = (0.3)*(1-0.9)*(1)*(1.3)
X = 3,9%

Well, looks good. Only 4% of torps may hit a scout. You may say, that this is hard, but I think, its okay. I would never attack a scout with torps.

Medium Cruiser:
The Medium cruiser got a Mass of 0.6 with a speed of 0.5 without egm and is attacked by the same enemy.
X = (0.6)*(1-0.5)*(1)*(1.3)
X= 39%

Fine. Remember, this ship is on maximum speed.

Battleship/Dreadnought:
Lets say a mass of 0.95, a speed of 0.15, no egm and is attacked by the same enemy.
X = (0.95)*(1-0.15)*(1)*(1.3)
X = > 100%
You cant miss it.

Anyone?

posted on April 18th, 2010, 9:57 am

Very nice math and yes your idea is very sound.

  I think though that there is an inherent problem in the game mechanics because with an increased dodge chance based on moving vs. not-moving, there is NO reason to not be moving .  Thus that forward-firing ships at a disadvantage and makes for much more intense micro-management.  That also causes troubles because the "formations" and such re not complete functions yet that allows for combat patterns.  Basically it tries to mimic Bridge Commander or Legacy when really this game focuses on the RTS aspect.

  Sadly I doubt they will ever truly be combinable .

posted on April 18th, 2010, 10:19 am

Using moving accuracy modifiers (both for and against) I tried to make the ships benefit from moving.. however it's not entirely practical.

Ships with directional fire-arcs (such as the B'rel & Defiant) suffer disproportionally because of their need to perform strafing runs. This makes destroyer-sized vessels impractically poor against Cruisers.. the gap needed in stats (both speed and survivability) would make teching up pointless.

Another issue, which Boggz mentioned, is the increase in micro intensity.. I'm very handy with my micro but under this system I struggled to micro more than 3 ships fluently.. to make it possible there would need to be a severe speed decrease (which isn't impractical) and/or a range increase.. which is dangerous as it tests the ability to view the battlefield as a whole, and takes us away from the micro were trying to make easier..

I wish it were possible.. and with some serious changes it could be.. it really makes the game feel closer, but in my experience it's very difficult. Especially when you consider that reducing the number of ships on-field results in greater loss when losing a ship in combat.. the first person to reach a critical mass of vessels would actually be at a disadvantage, which is a bad way for the slippery slope to go.. etc..

So on and so forth, but it really would be awesome to have, great number crunching Sheva.

posted on April 18th, 2010, 2:47 pm

...and to just add one last thing: moving actually does help you a lot against restricted arc and short ranged units even now - take Bugs versus B'rels for instance. You can dramatically lower losses just by moving your Bugs around in circles or leading around the B'rels  . Given, it's not in the same field, but really you ought to be moving your ships around still against those sorts of units. Furthermore, in the late game, this just becomes really hard to do, and you are forced to leaves your ships mostly stationary in order to make best use of the myriad of special abilities you have