Fleet cohesion cripples fleets, a lesson in giving people what they ask for

[taltamir]

Frankly, I am sick and tired of the fleet cohesion boohoo... I find current fleets to be CRIPPLED by cohesion... before fleets would actually get something done, you just know to assign a fleet larger then you need to a task because a certain percentage of the ships would not be included in the attack.

Now with all the fleet cohesion algorithms fleets spend most their time maintaining cohesion and not actually fighting things or performing useful tasks! I just let the fleets go do what they want while I personally manage 6 ships individually (Ctrl+1 through 6... with 7 through 0 reserved to targets). And I just blaze through things. If I order a fleet to do something it takes far too long to get anywhere or do anything... especially early on where you need several fuel stops on the way... all of which have to be done while maintaining cohesion... ugh!

would be nice if we could set cohesion goals... such as "travel at speed of slowest ship" vs "travel as fast as you can" and "assemble X% of fleet before attacking" where we could choose X to 100%, 90%, 75%, and 50%...
So when I actually NEED them to be at 100% strength I could have it by setting it to travel at slowest speed and to assemble 100% before attacking... while if doing minor operations set it to travel as fast as you can and assemble 50% or even 25% for really minor targets...
Or at the very least set the maintain fleet cohesion to "high, medium, or low" cohesion levels.
This is of course more work for our overworked friends in codeforce... sorry guys

Right now having one ship with an obsolete drive / fuel storage, or one damaged ship, or one ship that was recently added to the fleet and is on the other side of the galaxy or whatever... totally cripple a fleets ability to strike at weak targets. You order the strike, and they just sit there for 15 minutes "assembling" and not getting anything done.

[WoodMan]

Strange thing is I have not really encountered this problem yet, not in the scale you are talking about anyway.  I don't know why, but my fleets ignore damaged ships and just carry on without them.  How exactly are you ordering the strikes?  Right clicking or saying yes to advisors advice? 

How many ships do you put in a fleet?  You might try having more, but smaller fleets.

Saying that, I have yet to have a really big Empire with loads of ships in the new patch, maybe I will experience this problem later, but at the moment I'm not finding it particularly problematic.

[taltamir]

well... the damaged ships I have not personally seen actually. I just assumed it might be part of the cause.

I made a small fleet of 3 troop transports and I already noticed some delay, then the AI added 3 frigates to it which made things worse.
I quickly ended with 30+ ship fleets though, since I have AI ship building and AI ship forming.

I order the attack by right clicking the target planet.

Its not that the fleets don't eventually get the job done. Its just that they spend a significant amount of time preparing for attacks on otherwise undefended locations.
Obviously there are improvements that could be made to the overall logic that would mitigate it. My point was that with 1.0.5.6 I see fleet cohesion as a problem, every command I give is delayed significantly. (and yet people still complain that fleets are not cohesive ENOUGH for their taste).

Hence the suggestion of "wait for X% of ships" and "travel as slowest ship's speed/at own speed"...

mmm, another idea i did not think of before would be "travel together" or "travel apart but arrive at once"... that is, if a ship is apart from the fleet, it will travel to the target (not the fleet), and the rest of the fleet will travel as well to the target, they each will leave at a point in time such that they all arrive at the target system at the same time.
But all those suggestions are complex to program and are being a strain on the overworked developers. Codeforce does an outstanding job of supporting the game and I don't want to clamor for more stuff all the time. But satisfying the "fleets must always be together or heaven forbid a ship will be lost now and then" end up diminishing fleets usefulness by forcing them to spend most their time assembling and organizing and less of their time actually performing useful missions.

[WoodMan]

Ah I can see where your problem is coming from dude, and why its less apparent in my Empires.  You have AI fleet forming on, so ships from anywhere in your Empire could be joining at any time and really slowing the fleet down.

I form fleets manually and after forming the fleet set their home colony to somewhere near where you need them (centre of your Empire for Pirates and bug-hunts or maybe near your border with an enemy if you plan to attack) then send them there.  Once you have done that you will have no ships from the far reaches of your Empire trying to catch up with them because the AI added them to your fleet at an inopportune time, assuming you have turned off the auto fleet creation.

I've noticed that some people keep Troop transports in a completely different fleet all by themselves, which they have move in slightly after their main fleet.  I haven't tried this, but it could help avoiding problems of slow fleet reaction.

Having said that I do think you have some nice ideas with the "travel apart" and "travel together" ideas and move at slowest speed etc, many RTS games have this kind of thing (I think Soase fleets could set a good example here) [:D] 

[taltamir]

1. Disabling fleet formation automation means I am tasked with the huge chore of forming fleets.
2. What do you think this does to the AI? (both opponents and your own in case you are not controlling fleets actively at the moment, but left it on auto while doing something else)

[Starfry]

ORIGINAL: taltamir
2. What do you think this does to the AI? (both opponents and your own in case you are not controlling fleets actively at the moment, but left it on auto while doing something else)

The AIs have been hitting kinks of my trade routes hard with powerful fleets. Used to be that homeworld was safe due to the sloppy way they sent the fleet; more concentrated firepower from a fleet sent five sectors away destroyed everything, including the defence stations.

[Bartje]

I do like your proposed solutions Taltamir and it would give CodeForce some tools to integrate into the AI as well using some global strategical templates which the AI can compare and apply to the situation.

"travel together" = Convoys! Trade ships should use this on dangerous routes as well! The delaying part gives incentive to player & AI to keep the trade lanes clear!

or

"travel apart but arrive at once"...  = Very logical in cases where there is little enemy activity / danger / resistance along the way or in the form of intercepts (as if )

[WoodMan]

Well I don't see forming fleets as a massive chore myself, I found I didn't like the computer being in control and not me, so I disabled it [:D]

Not sure what you mean by point 2 [:(] But, if your fleets are manually or auto created it has no effect on your AI opponent whatsoever.  On your own AI I have all ships in a fleet un-automated.  So all they do is sit at the base I assigned them to until I need them.

Are you trying to assign all ships in your Empire to fleets or something?  It is safe to leave Escorts and Frigates un-fleeted and automated to patrol your Empire while using fleets of Destroyers\Cruis\Cap\Troop (and some escorts and frigates if you like) to respond to attacks or attack enemies.

[taltamir]

I had another idea: when the AI wants to add a ship to a fleet, it does not immediately add it to a fleet, instead it orders to to goto the fleet, only when it reaches the fleet does it join.

This can go hand in hand with the strategy I suggested before for transport ships.

Also sometime similar could be done for ships which are damaged (I am not sure if this is not already done, I don't see too many damaged ships; so I don't know how they work yet).

As for the AI hitting with strong fleets... it did that before too, with v1.0.4.9 I would get (occasionally) hit by strong fleets which would overwhelm my defenses as well. Now I don't think the AI actually attacks me. its too busy assembling to actually use its ships.

As for my own empire AI, I was actually talking about both my own empire AI and the opponent AI. I like my empire AI, it helps me manage large empires. I can focus on one task and do it well, but I don't have to worry about resources staying idle and nothing getting done with other tasks.

[Tophat1815]

Are you saying you have yet to be attacked in game by ai fleets since the patch?

[EisenHammer]

Unfortunately, the AI attacks are very week with v1.0.5.6
I would say that the AI is almost brain dead when it comes to fighting a war right now.
I think the fuel part of the game is killing the AI and the game overall.
Just make the engines have a certain range, and f*ck the fuel part of the game.

Sorry... but it's true!!!
Fuel for weapons & engines just sucks!!!
Get rid of it and just add range to the engines.

Edit: Downs another shot of whiskey... and then passes out.[>:]

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: Starfry

ORIGINAL: taltamir
2. What do you think this does to the AI? (both opponents and your own in case you are not controlling fleets actively at the moment, but left it on auto while doing something else)

The AIs have been hitting kinks of my trade routes hard with powerful fleets. Used to be that homeworld was safe due to the sloppy way they sent the fleet; more concentrated firepower from a fleet sent five sectors away destroyed everything, including the defence stations.

I've seen this as well.The ai fleet jumps in together not straggled out all over the starfield and then "hits' a target together and blows it away.

Also i tend to form my fleets at particular developed planets of mine.I then keep fleets together.I give ships from across the empire a "move to order"and get them to a planet in the operations area I want to work/expand/react in.That "base" planet always has a medium or large spaceport and I always give repair/refuel order to the fleet once its assembled.

But yes,people cried for "fleet cohesion",it was developed,tested and "quickly"got out to the players.If there are issues back them with detailed fact based explanations with saves.I'm sure elliot will take all reasoned and proved suggestions into account for future tweaks/changes/improvements.

Wow,so interesting,seems the developer is getting flak for being too responsive to the customer/fanbase.Guess he's doing something right,we have "DW is on the back burner comments and now too much fleet cohesion".i personally am waiting for the "OH why god did you listen to us and implement that suggestion thread".Thats all right fellows you all have a long way to go to claim the nit-picking title from my dear WiTp-AE forum crowd.

[:D]

[taltamir]

Wow,so interesting,seems the developer is getting flak for being too responsive to the customer/fanbase.Guess he's doing something right,we have "DW is on the back burner comments and now too much fleet cohesion".i personally am waiting for the "OH why god did you listen to us and implement that suggestion thread".Thats all right fellows you all have a long way to go to claim the nit-picking title from my dear WiTp-AE forum crowd.

This was never intended as flak at the developer. I appreciate all the hard work codeforce is doing.
Just that some actions have unintended consequences.

In the game I just finished the AI did not attack me even once with a fleet, it took too long to organize compared to me so it was always on the defensive (and then it died)

[Habadacus]

They need to get rid of the ridiculous fascination with fuel and fueling. This isn't WWII. And even in WWII the fuel went to the ships, not the other way around. It's just a cascading series of pains the ass that is ruining an already marginal game.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer
Fuel for weapons & engines just sucks!!!
Get rid of it and just add range to the engines.

This is a good point, and its really difficult on the AI and human players, it is an established part of the game and I don't see how you could change it via a patch.
This is something to keep in mind for DW2, but I don't see how you could do away with it.
Plus the reason not to have it is the horrible difficulty in making it work (mainly in how it cripples the AI), and DW has gone through quite a lot of tweaks to that system that constantly improved it and resolved many issues. But issues yet remain and fuel is indeed not a good mechanic to have in a game.

[WoodMan]

lol, I like the fuel thing.  Planning an attack route across the galaxy that has fuel stops along the way is a lot more fun than just ships that can fly everywhere and smash everything in 5 minutes, Soase does that just fine btw.

I think though when it comes to computer games the thing always lacking, in every game, is the AI is not intelligent enough to play like a Human does.  I'd rather them tweak the AI so it uses fleets and fuel better than change the way fleets and fuel work, but I got a feeling that is the most difficult route to take.

[Richard III]

In SEIV which is a very elegant game design ( although a more pure war game ) fleets units share fuel and can be fueled by supply ships that accompany the fleet acting like WW II Naval replenishment ships. I don`t know if that can be introduced here or even if it`s worth it since the SEIV AI Fleets never form up with supply ships anyway in that Game.

Also a system wide 4x game like this that uses ships that need frequent re-fueling is an idea that really needs to be revisited IMHO, it seems like a good idea, and may be in there to prevent early game exploits, but as people are discovering doesn`t work well in practice for the AI Game.

There is always a great temptation for devs to add features to a Game, but sometime great improvements to game play can be had by paring things away....

[DasTactic]

Like WoodMan, I'm all for the current system. Makes you really plan things out properly before you can attack. And having fuel as the same resource used for weapons just means you need to ensure your targets are thought through before-hand. If you attack at distance you can only take on a limited battle. I like it!

[WoodMan]

@Taltamir:  Elliot has taken onboard the suggestions regarding Attack Now and Move Together commands and says that they will be included in the next Beta of the current patch, check over in the beta patch thread [:)].  I think this is a good thing, it doesn't change the way these mechanics work, but it should give you and hopefully the AI Empires greater control and flexibility in terms of the speed at which you need to respond to a threat or launch an attack.

[EisenHammer]

ORIGINAL: Das123
And having fuel as the same resource used for weapons just means you need to ensure your targets are thought through before-hand.

Something the AI needs to learn.
I watch an AI Fleet one-time attack another system with 20+ ships and they all ran out of fuel before they got there. After they got there they slowly, turn around and headed back were they came from, I guess to get more fuel. That was the last time I saw the AI use a fleet.[8|]