Dvoongar's Doctrines

CaptainKwok · Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 2:15 am Post subject:

I'm curious to know if you're finding not breaking formation is working better than immediately breaking formation...?

Dvoongar · Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 6:52 am Post subject:

A splendid question!

Holding formation has drawbacks. The formations are not tight enough for earlier ships to mutually support each other. As weapons range (and especially PD range) increases, the formations suffer less from this weakness.

And to be totally honest, I find the formationless streams to be aesthetically repugnant. They also make it difficult to monitor battles when the ships stack up and you can't tell who's shooting at whom.

There are also advantages to formations:
1.) When ships hold formation the faster ships have fire support from slower ships rather than running out ahead of them to face the enemy alone.

2.) A surrounding/enveloping effect can occur if the formation breaks at the right time vs. an outnumbered or out-of-formation enemy. Alas, we don't have enough tools with which to time the break.

3.) The formation always presents the enemy with one, or occasionally two ships which are clearly "closest" and will draw all of their attention. This is an exploitational by-product of one of the game's weaknesses. But we didn't invent the formations and it's certainly not intentional.

4.) Use of formations results in ships arriving sequentially in shooting range rather than simultaneously. This means they don't all shoot together, and their firing cycles aren't synchronized. So they have a slightly lower chance of wasting shots on overkill. (If TTD were fleetwide or TF-wide, the situation would be even better.)

Overall, I think breaking formation immediately has the edge. There's a lot to be said for concentration-of-force, and the AI doesn't build many slower ships. The advantage is usually pretty small, and not worth the ugly. As tech advances, the formations fare better. I've never got to the high end of the tech tree, but I expect formations may well get the upper hand up there.

A fleet which breaks immediately really needs to take steps to counter overkill. "Closest (absulote) shouldn't even be used in their strat (with the exception of max range), and ttd% and the 'damage up to' % need to be decreased from defaults.

There are two cases where one has little choice. For players who use slow ships mixed with fast, the formation is practically mandatory at any stage of the game. And for playing keep-away, ships absolutely must break formation. The max range strat in the doctrines reflects this.

A major drawback for groups retreating in formation is that a slow leader can result in the whole group coming under fire. This situation is rare. This is somewhat of a side issue, since it's controlled by a different setting.

Counter question: I've assumed it's impossible, but can we mod the formations to be tighter? They'd rock if they weren't so loose.

It would be a good time for others to chime in here, who have experience with the higher techs. There may also be some issues I've missed. I have used the Doctrines vs. BM defaults, but not for most of my testing. And I only play against the AI. Surely someone's faced a human in this situation by now... how'd it go?

Edited to remedy disorganization. It 'flows' better now.

CaptainKwok · Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 12:23 pm Post subject:

You can make formations tighter by editing the formations files. There's square width and height settings for each formations.

Dvoongar · Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 1:53 pm Post subject:

Glad to hear it! A lot of things in tac combat are off-limits, but then I got to thinking it'd have to have that information stored somewhere.

Anyhow, looks like I found my next project.

Dvoongar · Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:26 pm Post subject:

Okay, I tightened up the formations and did some testing.

Tighter formations are clearly superior, and the arrowhead formation shouldn't be used because it gets the leader nailed and that slows everyone down.

Another trend I found in formation vs. unformed combat is that the mobs do better in direct fire, and the formations do better when seekers are involved and both sides have PD. Sometimes the mob will stay together in a group, and then it's an even fight.

Mobs tend to take an early lead in all situations because they concentrate enough firepower on one target to take it out quickly.

Formations have another weakness: when the leader turns, the formation rotates. One side will advance while the other side withdraws. This problem is reduced when formations are tightened, and it gets worse when they are looser. And if it happens at a bad time it can easily cost them the battle.

I didn't test mobs of mixed speeds because I've seen it before and they get slaughtered.

I may attempt to make a couple of new formations, but that's a lot more work than just tightening the existing ones. All I had to do was reduce the "square size" values and I got tighter formations.

As the game is now there's little downside to mobs, as long as all the members are about the same speed, and use similar tactics. There's no chance of collision, taking damage from stray shots, or getting caught in the blast when a ship explodes.

And until the formations learn to switch from line-abreast to line-ahead and other basic moves, they'll have trouble turning properly.

But there are several variations of formations which can be constructed by use of escort and picket status for some of the ships. I started to play with this, but it backfired when my formation was placed facing away from the enemy. After that I decided to keep things simple.

There's plenty more to investigate. I'm expecting formations to do quite well against fighters and drones now that I've tightened them, but it's hard to guess how the mobs will fare against them.

At this time I intend to continue using formations in the doctrines, but if I add "new flavors" I think I'll throw in one that breaks frequently. This would be good for an AI empire which is fond of direct-fire weapons. And it might be instructive for players to see how these things work in practice. I know I'm relearning a few things I forgot.

Dvoongar · Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 8:07 am Post subject: Formations

A couple of issues have arisen with the formations. I'm unsure, but it looks like in multiplayer, the host may need to have the same formations file in his data folder as the players or they won't apply properly in combat.

It also looks as if the AI assigns formations by number, rather than name. In this case, a modded formations file will scramble any plans the modder may have put in place for the AI's selection of formations.

If the AI is using numbers, there's still a question which formation will be chosen. In the "?" (info) menu, the formations are listed alphabetically; but when one goes to assign formations to TF's, the listing matches the order they occur in the file.

Final question: there is a limit in any formation to how many ships will fit as core, escort, and picket. Does anyone know what happens when the limit is exceeded?

Now for the good news: I've made progress with the formations and plan to have a TF formation supplement ready for the next set of doctrines. I wasn't satisfied with the stock formations' performance vs. streams/mobs. So I broke down and began working on my own.

In early testing, my new "Scoop (tight)" formation has been very effective against the mobs. I won't brag any more than to say when an equal force of unformed ships tries to tackle this formation they better eat their Wheaties! That includes direct-fire. I have plans for 3 more formations, and that's all. It takes me a long time to make even one and get it right.

If anyone has a clue about the above problems, any information would be helpful. It may be that nothing can be done about them, but we all like to avoid nasty surprises.

Dvoongar

I decided to move out of this thread, since this isn't really the same thing as other "AI mods".

http://www.spaceempires.net/home/ftopicp-24135.html#24135
will be the new thread, unless I think of something better. Anyhow, DD 0.93 is available there.