Large Fleet Actions

[swatter555]

There are simply too hard to control. There is way too much going on and the frame rate drop is pretty extreme.

A solution might be to have a command where you order a ship or fleet to patrol a certain spot in space. If an enemy ship gets close enough to threaten that ship/fleet, then it engages that threat. At the same time, the group should not stray to far from that spot, otherwise it becomes insanely chaotic.

Anyone else have thoughts on large fleet actions? I got into a biggie and it was simply crazy.

[DigitalPhoenix]

[font="Arial"]tell me about it !

**incoming , big story !**

my very first game i played was a huge galaxy of 1400 star systems and featured every single one of the 20 races as opposing AI empires . eventually , i built a humongous empire that spanned the whole galaxy making nearly all the other empires extremely jealous of me . i discovered a planet that was the only one in the whole galaxy to contain Loros Fruit , an extremely rare resource . and so i immediately set out to colonize it .

BUT , to my dismay , the one empire in the whole galaxy that was a big enough threat to mine already had a couple footholds in the star system that the Loros Fruit planet was in , and therefore was able to colonize it before my own colony ship got there while i was looking away for a split second to micromanage another part of my empire .

so i thought , " meh ! i'll just send a small fleet here to take it over . my military strength and numbers are far superior to theirs " and that i did BUT not without consequences that i could have ever imagined . this upstart empire , decided that it didnt wanna be bullied by me easily taking it's planet from under their nose in one of their own systems . and this is where the war started . it felt like a hundred years war ! LOL

at first he started to stream in destroyers and other small military ships little by little to attack my small fleet orbiting the Loros Fruit planet , never allowing me to build a space port and defense stations . so i became irritated and forced to send in another fleet to handle the situation . that did not turn out well . the enemy kept streaming in small groups of destroyers and frigates and kept my fleets busy or chasing them off . now i was angry .

why wont this empire just give up , i will crush him ? i tried to negotiate but he demanded 6 million+ credits just to end the war and i was like HELL NO ! so i sent in more fleets and so did he and the battle just kept escalating more and more .

now , i was fuming , raging mad and so from across my vast galactic empire , i summoned my ship of ships , the world annihilator which i discovered not too long ago and repaired and had already used to take out one empire that kept declaring war on me . i ordered the world annihilator to come over and take care of business ! so the mother of all bad@$$ ships came by and started systematically taking out the enemy ships one by one .

to my shock and horror , this empire simply kept sending in little military ships and the occasional cruiser and capital ships and proceeded to slowly but surely eat away at my world annihilator's shields and hull . it took a very long time and no matter how much i tried , i couldnt get my world annihilator to retreat or escape . by this time , my computer was strangely starting to feel sluggish ...

the area of space around the Loros Fruit planet was speckled with dead ships or ships that ran out of fuel and shields and energy , that all they could do was sit there and look at each other menacingly . this cluttered my screen and loaded heavily on the graphics . eventually , after in-game days and weeks have gone by , the enemy's tiny ships utterly annihilated my world annihilator .

i could not give up now ! i lost too much , but what else could i do ? so , in sheer desperation , i foolishly zoomed out to galaxy view mode and selected a large area of neighboring and distant sectors of the galaxy surrounding the star system locked in battle . i managed to select 96 military ships in that one fell swooping drag-and-select motion . then i zoomed in to the planet and the surrounding battle and ordered the makeshift fleet to come in and prepare to destroy the enemy .

what happened next was the final straw that broke the camel's back . so my makeshift fleet flew in and started attacking the enemy's steady stream of incoming ships and all of a great sudden , i had my very own epic star wars / star trek / dune / battlestar galactica / independence day-sized space battle in slower than slow motion ! u can see all their lasers and pulse beams and torpedoes float and swim across the battlefield to finally at long last , strike their targets .

it was crazy , but all in slow motion ! my computer just couldnt handle a battle of that magnitude ! it started to get choppy and eventually it took minutes before there was any movement , but strangely my system didn't crash ... the game just semi-locked up . so i saved it which took what felt like almost a half an hour . then i finally forced the game to shutdown thru ctrl-alt-delete / task manager .

my system is a intel core 2 duo processor at 2ghz , 4gb ram , vista 64-bit , with geforce 9600M GS graphics chip and 512mb graphics ram . i guess even that is not enuff for that epic space battle i just witnessed in-game .

i went back into DW and loaded the game i just saved and found i could avoid that area where the epic battle was taking place . i just went ahead and managed other parts of my empire and after quite some time and civil wars and new discoveries and finally negotiating a cease fire with the upstart enemy , i went back to the area where the massive war took place and found all my ships out of fuel , energy , and shields just sitting there like how those abandoned fleets look like when u first discover them . LOL

**TL:DR (too long : didnt read)**

dam , i agree . massive epic battles r too crazy to try to get involved with ! too bad either Distant Worlds and/or my PC couldnt handle the graphics and processing it took to compute and render them smoothly . that woulda been a sight to behold to actually see how the battles ended if left to play out without negotiations , choppy video , and game lock-ups . oh well . maybe some day when we get super-uber computers or maybe the developers just need to tweak and patch the game code a bit , or maybe a lot for better memory , cpu , and graphics management .

but u have some good ideas and u should add them to the wish list thread . i too get annoyed when a ship patrols and defends an area and ends up lost in space because it chased off an enemy ship only to run out of fuel and not be able to return to defend the planet or space port , etc.[/font]

[Gerth]

LOL!

Now we know how the Brits felt during the War for Independence.

[Gertjan]

Interesting write up. Was this with the new patch?

[Malevolence]

@DigitalPhoenix: +1 for a great story.

[ASHBERY76]

My only issue with fleets is micromanaging refueling, it is annoying and should be automatic when patrolling planets,mines with enough fuel resources.Being able to refit all ships in the fleet that was added in 1.3 was a good start.

[JonathanStrange]

How many ships in a battle constitute a "large fleet action"?

[Aloid]

I have not purchased the game yet (probably will this weekend) but have a question... If fleets require fuel, can't you bring tankers along? Do they exist as a concept in the game?

I see refueling stations exist and understand their limitation, but tankers assigned to a fleet which would run back and forth replenishing their fleet would seem logical. They would require escort, etc...

Aloid

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: Aloid

I have not purchased the game yet (probably will this weekend) but have a question... If fleets require fuel, can't you bring tankers along? Do they exist as a concept in the game?

I see refueling stations exist and understand their limitation, but tankers assigned to a fleet which would run back and forth replenishing their fleet would seem logical. They would require escort, etc...

Aloid

Resupply ships now work. They don't automatically run back and forth, but they do carry a cargo filled with fuel. You still are required to order ships to refuel (in manual mode) and required to order the resupply ship to go fill back up again. It's not perfect, but doable.

[taltamir]

My temporary solution thus far is to AI for combat to auto and go do stuff in another part of the empire... if my ships are better and more numerous then I will win the war... it will take some time by the AI of my side and theirs will take turns plinking at each other with a "neverending stream of ships" under said stream of ships actually ends....
the computer doesn't need to "draw" all your ships fighting in that system and thus you don't slow down to a crawl..

also, ships are less likely to run out of fuel at auto mode... they escape and go refuel (then come back to the fight)

btw... let them recapture that planet (for the moment)... have a full fledged fight with them across all planets and fronts (combat on auto)... then when their army is decimated... THEN focus on ensuring YOU have that star system (and planet) before signing that peace treaty...

but yes, those are all workarounds. there is a performance issue

[Aloid]

Thanks for your response.

I'm assuming you could form a refueling fleet and have it follow the battle fleet. As long as you monitor the refueling fleet's status you can manually attend to it.

Do fleets have types or roles to help you find it in a fleet listing? Maybe I have to take my WITP hat off... but this would seem useful.

Aloid

[DigitalPhoenix]

[font="Arial"]

ORIGINAL: Gerth

LOL!

Now we know how the Brits felt during the War for Independence.

hehe , i was thinking the same thing when my vast empire of about ~200 colonies declared civil war on me not once but TWICE after i had spent all that blood , sweat , and tears building my empire up over time . i was so mad that they could backstab me like that yet strangely heartbroken too . it was like no love lost , they were a completely different empire like the ones u could discover randomly in your journeys .

the second civil war introduced a funny *bug* tho . the first rebellious nation called themselves the Quameno Alliance and the second one , named themselves Quameno Alliance Quameno Federation ! LOL

it was like the AI didnt kno a previous empire already had a civil war with me and took up the name Quameno Alliance , so it just appended Quameno Federation to it to distinguish itself .

ORIGINAL: Gertjan

Interesting write up. Was this with the new patch?

nope , patch 1.02 , but i had since updated to 1.03 and started a completely new game using 1400 star systems and 19 random opposing empires and the new memory managemnt is noticeably much better in my opinion .

back in 1.02 , it took 10+ minutes to save a game and about 90 - 100 mb of hard drive space . now in 1.03 it takes maybe ~2 mins to save and ~20 mb of hard drive space for each save file .

good thing for that too cuz i use autosave and i would hate to have it set at autosave every 10 minutes and take 10 minutes to save only to get back to the game and a second later autosave for 10 minutes again . [X(]

this time tho , even tho 1.03 manages system resources better , i think i'll stay clear of massive all-out battles with 90+ ships in my fleet , a dozen or so in theirs constantly streaming in , and a slew of dead ships floating around on the battlefield . tempting ... but nah .

ORIGINAL: Malevolence

@DigitalPhoenix: +1 for a great story.

thx ! and yeah i didnt mean to write a WALL OF TEXT so i put in some warning signs like ** big story ** and ** TL:DR ** afterwards .

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

My only issue with fleets is micromanaging refueling, it is annoying and should be automatic when patrolling planets,mines with enough fuel resources.Being able to refit all ships in the fleet that was added in 1.3 was a good start.

agreed . better yet , we should get technology like in stargate universe's ship " destiny " and be able to fight near any star and be able to refuel from it just a short hyperspace jump away . [:D]

ORIGINAL: JonathanStrange

How many ships in a battle constitute a "large fleet action"?

unfortunately , for some of us , i think the answer may be system-dependent . the new patch did increase system resource management but i dont wanna test exactly how good of a change it was when it comes to large fleet battles . once was enuff for me .... for now . [;)]

ORIGINAL: taltamir

My temporary solution thus far is to AI for combat to auto and go do stuff in another part of the empire... if my ships are better and more numerous then I will win the war... it will take some time by the AI of my side and theirs will take turns plinking at each other with a "neverending stream of ships" under said stream of ships actually ends....
the computer doesn't need to "draw" all your ships fighting in that system and thus you don't slow down to a crawl..

also, ships are less likely to run out of fuel at auto mode... they escape and go refuel (then come back to the fight)

btw... let them recapture that planet (for the moment)... have a full fledged fight with them across all planets and fronts (combat on auto)... then when their army is decimated... THEN focus on ensuring YOU have that star system (and planet) before signing that peace treaty...

but yes, those are all workarounds. there is a performance issue

yep yep , that's what i did when i semi-locked up in the heat of that epic-battle . i saved , exited , reloaded game , and completely avoided the battle site while it was going on and my game ran normally so long as i stayed away and let them duke it out themselves . but i would have loved to have been there to see how it turned out .

speaking of that , there was a funny moment in there . when i was able to finally negotiate with the enemy to end the war for an acceptable fee , he accepted and i immediately zoomed back to the battle area .

and while the last of the lasers were still in mid-flight to their targets , both my ships and the enemy's ships immediately stopped , turned around , and "walked away" they didnt stumble away in pain or hyperspace out of there in a flash , but simply glided away as if they hadnt just gotten out alive from a massive all-out war with one another just seconds ago ! LOL too funny . " go about your own business , nuthin to see here ! " *with a shoo-ing ships away gesture*
[/font]

[Grotius]

Fun "War on Independence" story, DigitalPhoenix. I love the names of all the rebels. Sounds like something out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

[taltamir]

back in 1.02 , it took 10+ minutes to save a game and about 90 - 100 mb of hard drive space . now in 1.03 it takes maybe ~2 mins to save and ~20 mb of hard drive space for each save file .

It depends on your size, when you are a 200-300 planet empire again it will take 100mb files and more minutes to save.