The planet defenses.

[JetJaguar2000]

There must be a bug there as well, then, since I was at war with this guy when he wiped out all my colony defenses with that first strike.

[Tsagoth]

Generally, I feel like this first strike stuff, and the ridiculous power of colonies, etc., is making combat really unintuitive. Between all the different ship and orbital combinations, and these mechanics (and the bugs around them) it is impossible to understand what is an appropriate defensive strategy against any given attacker. I wish it was all a bit simpler.

Colonies are overpowered because the ease with which they were taken was just about the number one complaint during beta, although their current population growth rate is bug. Although we used our entire allotment of 100 devices for testing, I think only about twenty-odd people played with any regularity, so it was pretty difficult to judge how well many of the mechanics were working. Thus colonies were given better defense, and the ship conversion to orbital defense was introduced. The patch today will reduce population growth to 1/12 of it's current rate, so going forward new colonies will not be hitting 400Mu in a few hours.

The current combat AI is always going to first strike. With the multi-threaded nature of the server and the fact that the ships and AI operate as independent entities, there is always going to be a first strike advantage. I'm willing to entertain any and all suggestions, but there are a lot of technical limitations on what the AI can be twisted to do. Honestly, this combat AI is the most complicated thing I have coded in more than 30 years. There are some aspects that I hardly even understand myself.

[JetJaguar2000]

I assume this means that "combat" is not modeled as an explicit event between two players, but rather there is some thread monitoring everyone's assets asking "is this thing being attacked? If so, attack back!" and that is where first strike derives from?

The combat tutorial claims that combat damage is resolved simultaneously to both sides. Does first strike imply that this is not that case and they alternate attacking, or is first strike just the trigger that starts them shooting at each other on the same schedule?

[Tsagoth]

No combat is not a single event, like rolling dice and saying x wins. Say Player A and B are at peace, and A flys ships to B's planet. B's possessions do nothing as A is not a known enemy. A says attack B. A combat AI is launched for A. AI(A) then finds all of A's ships that can be used for the attack. It then locates all the targets that B owns. It then attaches individual combat AI to each attacking ship. Then it runs through all of the attackers and assigns them their targets, using as many ships on each target as it deems is necessary to kill the target outright. Finally it gives the signal to each ship to start shooting. After that AI(A) goes to sleep. When an attacker destroys its target, it notifies AI(A) that it needs a new target, at which point AI(A) will run through target selection again for that ship. If an attacker is destroyed, AI(A) removes the ship from the attacker list and makes its target available for other ships to attack. During all of this each of player A's ships are shooting on their own schedule as dictated by their indvidual AI routines. The process is essentially the same for player B. When one of ships take damage, it launches a combat AI for player B and it also alerts all of player B's other assets, so that even if it is destroyed by the first strike, whatever remains of B will continue to attack. The shooting of the missiles/energy beams by the attacker is separate from the application of the damage to the target. The defender can't know what the attacker has done until the damage begins to appear, and this is always going to be the case. Sorry for the long paragraph, but the stupid editor is borked and I can't put in blank lines.

[Supamand]

Hmm so a person with a huge force could just 1 shot things without taking casualties?

What happens if player B is at war with player A? Do ships then attack simultaneously?

[Royce]

What happens if player B is at war with player A? Do ships then attack simultaneously?

You mean this?

If you are at war with someone then you should get the first strike as soon as they appear at your planet. Your defences should fire as soon as the enemy has reached orbit.

Looks like first strike goes to the defender if at war, attacker if not.

[JetJaguar2000]

No combat is not a single event, like rolling dice and saying x wins. Say Player A and B are at peace, and A flys ships to B's planet. B's possessions do nothing as A is not a known enemy. A says attack B. A combat AI is launched for A. AI(A) then finds all of A's ships that can be used for the attack. It then locates all the targets that B owns. It then attaches individual combat AI to each attacking ship. Then it runs through all of the attackers and assigns them their targets, using as many ships on each target as it deems is necessary to kill the target outright. Finally it gives the signal to each ship to start shooting. After that AI(A) goes to sleep. When an attacker destroys its target, it notifies AI(A) that it needs a new target, at which point AI(A) will run through target selection again for that ship. If an attacker is destroyed, AI(A) removes the ship from the attacker list and makes its target available for other ships to attack. During all of this each of player A's ships are shooting on their own schedule as dictated by their indvidual AI routines. The process is essentially the same for player B. When one of ships take damage, it launches a combat AI for player B and it also alerts all of player B's other assets, so that even if it is destroyed by the first strike, whatever remains of B will continue to attack. The shooting of the missiles/energy beams by the attacker is separate from the application of the damage to the target. The defender can't know what the attacker has done until the damage begins to appear, and this is always going to be the case. Sorry for the long paragraph, but the stupid editor is borked and I can't put in blank lines.

That sounds incredibly convoluted. It's strange to me that you are modeling combat as if it were a simulation when it is (or should be) an entirely deterministic event based on simple input (the ships present at the site of the event), especially given that combat itself is non-interactive.

In any case, this is very different than what the combat tutorial describes. Having one side fire first completely changes the dynamic of the battle. Couldn't you just have the first shots fired after an attack order be "dummy rounds" that do zero, or some fractional damage? Enough to trigger a response but not enough to give an advantage.

[catswift]

First strike needs to go. I captured my entire galactic sector on day 3 of a server start (not colonies, just outposts), all without losing a ship.

Diplomatic status having an effect on first strike just contributes horribly to this mechanic. Set my diplomatic status with everyone to war, please. The cost otherwise is simply not worth it.

[Supamand]

I wonder what will happen if a reinforcement fleet arrives in mid combat. Will the new fleet be allowed to join?

Also, what if the planet that I attack has fleets from 2 different players in the planets orbit? Will I have to fight those fleets at well?

[JetJaguar2000]

First strike needs to go. I captured my entire galactic sector on day 3 of a server start (not colonies, just outposts), all without losing a ship.

Diplomatic status having an effect on first strike just contributes horribly to this mechanic. Set my diplomatic status with everyone to war, please. The cost otherwise is simply not worth it.

Yeah, the balance of this game is all messed up. I'm not even sure anymore what factors are contributing to it, which of them are bugs, and what can be done about it. I still think colony defense is too high, but outposts are too easy to take. Taking an undefended outpost should be easy, but with first strike it's nearly impossible to deploy sufficient defenses at an outpost. Once an attack by 20+ cruisers is common (which doesn't take long), first strike means you need 5 or more orbital laser arrays to fend that off. Is that really what the designers intended?

What we need is a bunch of fixes and then a fresh game to see how they play out. The dynamics are all out of whack in the early games because of the lack of ship count early on, artificially inflated empires, etc. (that said, I've already given up on the latest server, since my home world spawned in the absolute corner of the universe, with nothing within 10 sectors, and the closest stuff already claimed by others... And I'm not a trader).

As much as I love the idea of this game, I'm starting to think it's really just not ready for prime time. It needs 6 more months of design and development. The fact that fundamental balance changes are patched in willy-nilly is not encouraging. For a game of this complexity, you really need to think through the impact of every tweak.