Raiding too easy to succeed?

[Kayoz]

I'm sure this has occurred to others, but it seems to me that with raiding is far too easy to get a success.

Raid with 5 escorts of one assault pod each, onto a planet defended by 23 troops (mix of infantry and armour) - led by an uber general... and the raiders are somehow successful???

I'm not sure what the algorithm for "success" entails (at the moment, it seems drastically weighted in favour of the raiders) - but those sort of defenders should be extremely difficult to get a successful raid off on the planet.

(FYI - early-to-mid-game approx, 842k attack, 461k defence - general bonus of +33% ground defence. IMO, the raiders should require far more than a handful of escorts to succeed against that.)

[elanaagain]

I agree that a 'successful' raid is too easy to achieve in many situations. I have two observations. First, the label 'successful' is probably a misnomer in many cases. If the pirate raiders lose many raider troops, ships, etc., compared to the colonists, is that a success? I have experienced a number of 'successful' raids where pirate losses have been 100% and its still 'successful,' (for the pirates). Perhaps 'successful' might be changed to 'pirates took some loot.' Second, even when the raid is quashed, the pirates sometimes get significant rewards, like a whole tech! These pirates act more like fanatics than the typical pirate motivated by self-interest, short term gain. And many pirate organizations (look up: 'brethren of the coast') were democratic in a world filled with absolute monarchs and their puppet '<Generic name>' Company. They did not usually fight to the death against poor odds. I'm not sure what to do about this except to change the name from 'successful' raid to 'pirates got some loot.' And scale down the quality/quantity of loot gained from raids that are squashed.

[Mad Igor]

I've noticed that BS...when i have about 200K troop str,and pirate only 40K they somehow managed to success...wtf.
plus wtf with this "success" when there are NO SHIP,how can they carry all this loot without SHIP to transport it ??? (hint: when they drop at least one pod,but ship was destroyed)

[Fenrisfil]

Yeah I can't quite figure out how the pirates can steal anything when they are all dead or at the very least stranded on the planet. Also really a group of pirates shouldn't be able to raid a planet with a huge standing army. Pirates should be limited to raids on your outer colonies with small garrisons and independent planets.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: elanaagain
the label 'successful' is probably a misnomer in many cases. If the pirate raiders lose many raider troops, ships, etc., compared to the colonists, is that a success?

Absolutely, it is a success. Assault pods regenerate for free - neither cost nor effort for using them as often as they recharge. Population loss is lost tax revenue (for the dead colonists), in addition to the increased corruption (affecting all colonists).

ORIGINAL: Mad Igor
wtf with this "success" when there are NO SHIP,how can they carry all this loot without SHIP to transport it ??? (hint: when they drop at least one pod,but ship was destroyed)

I do think this is horribly wrong. Raiders should be required to have a ship within a certain (short) distance of the planet to transfer the booty to. Dropping raiders and zipping off to hyperspace should be an immediate denial of any booty. Looking on it as a raider - you have no way to escape and will be hunted down by the enraged inhabitants. Not exactly a great motivator for a free-booting pirate.

[Ardryn]

Perhaps raids should only be considered successful if they end with the space control ground combat modifier active?

Of course, then my main concern becomes programming the AI to understand this facet.

[elanaagain]

maybe the pirates that landed on the colony aren't all 'killed.' Perhaps some melt into the civilian pop... and then use clandestine com links to transfer credits and teck data to galactic Swiss off planet accounts...

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: elanaagain

maybe the pirates that landed on the colony aren't all 'killed.' Perhaps some melt into the civilian pop... and then use clandestine com links to transfer credits and teck data to galactic Swiss off planet accounts...

Kinda hard to imagine, since they start off fighting the defence forces.

Visualize the 9-11 attackers parachuting from the plane before impact, and how "easily" they might meld into the NY populace. Factor into this a society that's far more technologically advanced (ie: more able to track the movements and actions of its populace). Not to mention how one might "melt into" the Gizurean civilian population (note: hive mind) when one is a talking fish or a soft skinned human.

Oh, forgot to mention - they aren't just laundering the money or transmitting tech info grabbed in the raid. They're going to have to potentially move millions of tons (this is a planet-wide raid, after all) of material off planet without the the authorities noticing... after they're well aware that it's been stolen.. after a very public and violent raid.

[elanaagain]

@Kayoz my comment was (a failed?) attempt at humor.

[Lucian]

I do think this is horribly wrong. Raiders should be required to have a ship within a certain (short) distance of the planet to transfer the booty to. Dropping raiders and zipping off to hyperspace should be an immediate denial of any booty.

Perhaps the defeated pirates are assumed to hide that stolen treasure, which is eventually picked up when their freighters visit at some point in the future.

[Tehlongone]

ORIGINAL: Lucian

I do think this is horribly wrong. Raiders should be required to have a ship within a certain (short) distance of the planet to transfer the booty to. Dropping raiders and zipping off to hyperspace should be an immediate denial of any booty.

Perhaps the defeated pirates are assumed to hide that stolen treasure, which is eventually picked up when their freighters visit at some point in the future.

This does make some sense, a planet is a big place and we are generally just talking a few thousand tons, it could be abstracted as leaving on independent freighters and corrupted versions of your own. Pirates are also multi-racial organizations, after a few raids of a planet members of that race will be recruited, who is to say members of yours weren't recruited to help leading up to the raid/under it?

I do think there should be some sort of cut-off point where the resistance faced was simply too overwhelming for any loot to be grabbed. One of my planets was consistently looted despite 12 troops, 1.5billion inhabitants and a fleet in system engaging the raiders nearly immediately (it was the second planet in my homesystem).

It didn't stop until I started aggressively clearing out holdouts in a wide radius around me. Yet perhaps that makes some sense too. Still you'd think most of the fleets getting destroyed, and their armies defeated would have an impact on loot.

Requiring the raiders to stay in system may be too hard a requirement for the AI, but perhaps say:
If a raid fails within a given time-limit no loot is obtained unless ships are still in system, or there is a pirate facility; as for close calls they get full rewards as they have ample time to stash resources.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Tehlongone
Requiring the raiders to stay in system may be too hard a requirement for the AI

Why do you say that? Doesn't sound too difficult to me.

Tethering raiders to the planet shouldn't be too hard to do... though the decision to raid will have to take into account whether or not they can survive long enough to collect the booty (showing up at a planet and finding a massive fleet in orbit should trigger an immediate abort of the raid). Not an onerous coding task, but something that Elliot would have to take into account.

ORIGINAL: Tehlongone
If a raid fails within a given time-limit no loot is obtained unless ships are still in system, or there is a pirate facility; as for close calls they get full rewards as they have ample time to stash resources.

The evaluation process of raid booty, as well as success/failure/partial-success seems woefully broken at the moment.

On a side note, which I've seen related threads - the raiding rewards for pirates hilights the need for tethering system - such that one's ships assigned to protect a planet don't constantly leave to chase off an explorer and leave the planet undefended. The closest we have at the moment is the "patrol" command which is, for a variety of reasons, insufficient and leads to micromanagement-hell.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: elanaagain

@Kayoz my comment was (a failed?) attempt at humor.

At least one person takes the idea seriously.

That said, the best humour is firmly grounded in reality.

[Tehlongone]

Well I can certainly agree with that.

What I meant by too hard on the AI was that it would have to take several more things into consideration before even initiating a raid, otherwise they'll just mindlessly fly to a planet to start raiding and wait around to get destroyed most of the time.

The more random (and numerous) pirates have to think about such things the more system resources will be drawn and in so doing slow down the game considerably, it's a balancing act. Still a bit of improvements in this area would be nice and I suppose stuff like simply abandoning raids after showing up wouldn't make a difference.

If they had to always wait in-system for the raid to finish they'd be sitting ducks and a trivial matter to deal with though.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Tehlongone
What I meant by too hard on the AI was that it would have to take several more things into consideration before even initiating a raid, otherwise they'll just mindlessly fly to a planet to start raiding and wait around to get destroyed most of the time.

It doesn't have to be done all the time for every ship, so I can't see how doing such an evaluation would consume a great deal of resources.

ORIGINAL: Tehlongone
The more random (and numerous) pirates have to think about such things the more system resources will be drawn and in so doing slow down the game considerably, it's a balancing act. Still a bit of improvements in this area would be nice

You prefer the "totally random" raid target selection method used now? Sure, "pick a random target to raid" method is fast. But it sucks. It's not fun.

Nor is it an onerous coding task. It just requires efficient coding and a little foresight.

ORIGINAL: Tehlongone
I suppose stuff like simply abandoning raids after showing up wouldn't make a difference.

Yes it would. They wouldn't suicide on fleet you have parked over the planet, but instead leg it immediately. That sounds like a difference to me.

.... unless you meant "game speed difference" - in which case, yes - such a change would be trivial in terms of resources (memory, CPU time).

ORIGINAL: Tehlongone
If they had to always wait in-system for the raid to finish they'd be sitting ducks and a trivial matter to deal with though.

Well, there's a reason that most pirates (those with a sense of self-preservation) didn't engage the British navy head on. A small raider fleet hitting a small outlying planet shouldn't be TRYING to duke it out with the owner's main battle fleet. If the 3-5 escort raiding fleet shows up and finds the planet defended by a few dozen capital ships... then I say yes - sticking around SHOULD BE lethal. Kamikaze attacks on such a target SHOULD NOT be rewarded for. Screaming in on a planet - obliviously ignoring the ships right there and the orbital bases bristling with weapons - and releasing raider pods mere seconds before being turned to space dust - should NOT be rewarded.

Raiding with forces representative of expected opposition shouldn't be too hard to do (or rather, improve on the "mindlessly random" current method). All it would require is a little tweaking to the raider raid target choice code. Something akin to...

[b]1.[/b] Pick a random target (reasonable criteria - in range, not already excluded, etc). [b]2.[/b] Check cooldown. No point in raiding a planet that already has a fleet raiding it, or assigning a fleet to raid a planet that will still not be out of cooldown when fleets in transit have struck. [b]3.[/b] Check recent history of survival. The last 5 fleets turning into a pretty light show of particulate matter raining down on the atmosphere should make this planet (system?) an undesirable target for that fleet doing the evaluation. If fails "desirable" check, pick another target (abort and add this system to exclusion list). Else continue. [b]4.[/b] Check recent history of defender's firepower seen in system. if the pirate fleet's firepower is sufficiently below that last (recently) see in system, then the pirate fleet should have a chance of immediately dropping the choice. Desirable target? If no, goto 1. (note, stronger fleets will not be deterred by puny forces that have wiped out previous raiders) [b]5.[/b] If nothing found, increment choice "attempt" counter. [b]6.[/b] If choice "attempt" counter exceeds x (x selections, and still nothing acceptable) - pick random target and skip all evaluation.

And then, on arrival, add up firepower of all military ships in system. Add firepower of target's orbiting bases. Compare to raider fleet's firepower. If ratio (not fixed - based on race, aggression, etc) - if exceeds maximum ratio for the pirate, leg it.

Sloppy, but you get the idea.

... which brings up another minor gripe - "space control" bonus is well and good. But there should be an additional bonus for defenders (and it should be huge - +100% at a minimum) if there are orbital platforms (type: port, defence base) orbiting the planet (and not currently under construction - incomplete orbital defences don't count). Raiding or invading a planet that has active orbital defences should be significantly harder than at a planet where such defences have been neutralized.

[elanaagain]

@Kayoz Yes, your observations about pirate raids. I concur. I would suggest that the AI is flawed in this area and a related area: explorer ships. They keep going to a main pirate base - system and suicide-ing. Changing their behavior in the automation windows to 'don't explore enemy systems' does NOT end this suicide behavior. Its the same part of the game engine code - maybe they could fix that as well?