fleet size

BlueO · February 4, 2002, 15:37

Are there going to be a limit on fleet size in moo3? I've always hated having to put all ships into a single fleet. Kinda unrealistic and makes the strategy part boring as well.

I mean, during ww2, the Japanese and the United States didn't put all their ships into one fleet and have only one decisvie battle. Star trek didn't have one huge armada running throughout the galaxy doing the things they do.

I think, a huge fleet needs to have flaws. Communication, personnels, fuel, supplies, and maintence all play a part. Having all the ships you possess in one fleet, means all of its needs are never going to be meant. So a huge fleet, should have minimal effectiveness. They travel slower and fights weaker than a smaller fleet with optimal effectiveness. A huge fleet is still very strong, but during battles they are going to suffer a lot more casualties and be much harder to control.

Fleets size should be controlled by ship component (comm hardwares), leaders, racial attributes, and military infrastructures. So some races are naturally be better with huge fleets, and other better at smaller fleets for hit-and-run battles.

Zealot · February 4, 2002, 16:11

I only agree with the slower part.
Maybe because in the same fleet smaller ships have to keep bigger ships' pace.

Garth Vader · February 4, 2002, 17:17

When did you have to put all your ships in one fleet

In every space strategy game I have ever played I used multiple fleets inclucing Moo and Moo2.

BlueO · February 4, 2002, 17:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Garth Vader
When did you have to put all your ships in one fleet

In every space strategy game I have ever played I used multiple fleets inclucing Moo and Moo2.

Weird, every space strategy game I played, I always put all the ships in one fleet, at least until I have a big tech lead, then I split up to mop up the map faster. Hmm, why would you want to make multiple fleets, if the ai sends its one giant fleet after you?

Stormhound · February 4, 2002, 21:53

Maintenance and logistics will provide a "natural" cap on the size of your fleet; it'll be a function of how much you want to spend. Aside from that, build all you want.

However, there are some limitations in combat. Task forces cannot have more than 64 ships. Each side of the battle is limited to 12 task forces (though I believe it's still possible for others to enter later, if room is made for them). That's 768 ships per side, and considering that the smaller ships are going to have a far more important role than in prior MOOs, there will be only so many big ones there.

Since there are also security and defense requirements to be dealt with (what, no ships in that juicy trade system? Break out the Jolly Roger, mama, we's goin' pirating!), it will be extremely undesirable (if not impossible) to put all your ships in a single stack.

BlueO · February 5, 2002, 17:55

Hmm, I maybe confusing in what wrote earlier. To clarify a little, what I mean is that, I think for any particular stack in the game, there ought to be an effectiveness rating for that stack. So if I park 2,000 battleships on my homeplanet, and the planet can only handle 200 battleships, then each individual ship will have reduced effectiveness. Think of it as a corruption model. Every ship that gets added to the stack, some of the power of the ships get lost. Their weapons do lower damage. Shield absorbs less damage. Each ship will have lower hitpoints. And they move slower. This is the result of the inability to satisfy the need of every ship, with so many around. Bigger ships needs more service. Ideally, the player may want to spread out the ships so that they may be serviced easily. But spreading out ships have its drawbacks, just as concentrating all of the ships have its drawbacks. Hence, this is where 'strategy' comes into play.

I don't know if other people like this, but I do. I think it makes sense, and keeps players from forming one giant super fleet to swoop the universe. Players have to decide on how many ships to put into one stack...because without some disadvantage, putting all the ships you have, will always be the best bet.

This brings into another point, if the player builds an oversized armada to invade a neighbor, as soon as the armada leaves the supporting planet, the armada will slowly reduce its effectiveness overtime. So soon or later, the player will have to break up the armada and scatter them out to optimize size or return home to resupply. This prevents the player (me!) from building one super-sized stack and sweeping the universe!

I also noticed the ai will also build supersized stacks, forcing me to intercept it with my supersized stack. Fate of the whole game are often determined by these supersized stack battles. Winner takes all. I guess I am tired of that.. I'm also tired of taking my super stack and sweeping the universe without any losses because there's no way a lesser fleet can even take out one vessel. So after the 2 or 3 super battles, game is over. Leaving me to clean up the 100+ planets from various ai empires that is basically incapable of building a new fleet to withstand my super stack. But by building the corruption model into stacks, all of sudden, my super stack isn't so super anymore. The more ships I put into it, the more losses I'll take because each individual ship will be serverly weakened due to lack of enough service. So after taking maybe 2 or 3 systems, my armada will naturally run out of steam, forcing me to regroup and allowing the ai to build up a new defense. Likewise, if the ai super stack attacks me and I lose, I'll have a second chance of defense, after the ai runs out if its steam. I like this idea much better; there's going to be a lot of give and take, attacks and counterattacks, hit and runs, surgerical strikes, alliances and betrayls! Why, this might even make it advantageous to split your entire fleet into different optimal stacks and strike into enemy territory all accross the border! So many many possibilities...

Shrug, argue on!

Stormhound · February 5, 2002, 18:41

Your ideas on support and logistics are interesting, but we opted for different methods in MOO3. I can't elaborate further at this time.

Mellian · February 6, 2002, 10:27

Lower hitpoints? Lower Shields? what??? Since when does ships run by fuel? else, they should be able to have full shields and full hitpoints..... your assuming that ships won't be very efficient.... if they are not, then they are Short Range ships with a lot of problems.....

Only way I can see a Super Fleet have problems is that, if they strick close to each other, there won't be much room for maneuverability.... but since Space is very large, they can simply spread.....

Also, didn't they say that space Combat in Moo3 will be Real Time? If so, all ships will be able to fire at each other at the same time, not take turns..... which is why Super Fleets in Moo2 and so on rules.... especially when your the attacker. Destroy the enemy fleet before they got a chance to fire back.... if they do, then you have enough ships that loosing a few shouldn't matter. I don't see that happening in a Real Time space battlefield....especially if the Battlefield is quite large.

I like the idea of Logistics and Supplies, but i suggest not to go overboard with that....

Why not add Tankers, Supply Ships and Repair Ships (won't be effective to repair major/critical damages, but minor ones they should be able too...and simply put bandades atleast to prevent bleeding you can say)? That way, you can send your fleet twice as further, but end up being stranded there afterwards of course.... so that is when you send the supply ships, tankers, and etc.... as they don't get intercepted and so on.

-LMP

BlueO · February 6, 2002, 20:19

Pax Imperia, Imperium Galatcium, and botf all have real-time combat. Botf uses a semi-turnbase-real-time weirdo system, but ships still fire at each other at the same time. The super battles are usually decided by the first few volleys. After that, the winner will pretty much stop taking losses, so the winner emerges victorious with many ships left.

Anyways, lower hitpoints, lower shields, weapons, etc, is the result of lower effectiveness. Lower effectiveness is the result of many factors that arises in oversized fleets (super fleets are oversized fleets, if that part isn't clear). First, there's the lack of maintence, which means broken down systems aren't been fixed. Personnels aren't been replaced. Cranky crew starting to throw fistfights due to lack of shore leaves. Whatever fuel cells they use for travel, aren't being replenished fully. Hull integrity isn't been regularly checked. During battles, overworked commnication network adds to the general confusion and chaos, all resulting in a lower effectiveness rating. Lower effectiveness rating means everything in the fleet work less effectively, hence, ships get more easily blown apart and do less damage against an optimal fleet without all those problems. In the end, an oversized fleet will take more losses than it would normally call for without the 'effectiveness rating system'.

I say, nerf the super fleets! Nerf nerf nerf!

Kc7mxo · February 7, 2002, 15:43

I'm tired of massive fleets of ships, and empires that stroll across the galaxy like giants. They're great fun, but after a while . .. .

What I'd like to see is a game that takes it to a smaller perspective, a dozen star systems or so, but at a much smaller scale. Capital ships would be massivly important ships in fleets made up mostly of escorts and cruisers.

i don't know, i just don't like how in moo3 we'll be ruling the ENTIRE galaxy, an area of space which contains trillions of stars. Even if the game only does have 256 (Only 256, heh) stars. I'd much prefer to be ruling a random cluster of stars, rather than a spiral galaxy, but if its a good game, i won't really mind.

loinburger · February 8, 2002, 22:39

The only reason that I haven't liked games with massive fleets/armies/star systems/etc. in the past is because the micromanagement becomes a nightmare. If IFP's are well implemented then this shouldn't be a problem any longer.

The only strategy game I ever played where you were limited to a few "super-armies" was Heroes of Might and Magic, where you could only move an army around if you had a hero attached to it. However, I've read that they're eliminating this requirement for the next Heroes of Might and Magic game, which means that I can finally abandon the Warlords game series. (Warlords always seemed too cold and empty to me. Its atmosphere just seemed so, I don't know, computer generated.)

BlueO · February 9, 2002, 15:24

Shrug, micromanagement never really became part of the problem because after midgame, I'll have made my one stack of fleet and defeated the ai's stacks of fleets. After that, my core planets have all the buildings they need, I can just have them idle using only one or two planets to continuously make ships. My fringe planets can idle all they want, because by the time they become productive, they won't be needed anyways. The tedious part, and I mean very very tedious, is taking my stack of ships, sometimes I use two or three, to systematically going after each and every enemy planet, destroying its massive defenses, and conquer it. This is usually where I get bored after the game (after my second or third run at the game).

I always wished, either the game give me a means to end the game quickly, or have some kind of lategame doomsday scenario where my huge stacks of ships can come into play. Moo2 had the Anatarians which is cool, but by the time I researched all the tech I need to open a gate into Anatarian homeworld, my huge stack of ships always became an overkill against the pitiful little Antarians...

I guess I'm the only one who gets bored after eliminating all of the ai's fleets. The game should either end right there, or something...

loinburger · February 9, 2002, 18:11

Warlords had a good solution: when you control a significant portion of the cities (I think it was that you needed to control at least half of the cities, and no single enemy could control more than a quarter of them), the enemy sent representatives to you offering you their kingdoms. You could either accept their offer and win the game right then and there, or you could put the petitioners' heads on spikes and keep grinding their armies into dust.

Worst micromanagement nightmare ever was in the original Lords of the Realm, where you coudn't just leave a county alone and assume that it wasn't going to suddenly get hit by a plague or drought or something. A single game of LotR could take weeks or even months, especially on a high difficulty setting when disasters were more likely to strike and require your attention. I loved the game, but never actually won it; it became too tedious.

On an unrelated note, does anybody know if the Siege Pack in Lords of the Realm II allowed you to design your own castles? Or if it brought back trebuchets? That was one thing that disappointed me about the second game: castle sieges were no longer sieges, but were slaughters. (I also didn't like how they (over)simplified the production system, but that's a different problem entirely).

vmxa1 · February 9, 2002, 20:29

Well does not the council vote allow you to end the game at that point with a vote, when it comes up? You can always just abandon at any point you feel the fun is over. If you want to boost your score you must build all population enhancers and then put the colony on House.

BlueO · February 10, 2002, 02:42

You're right, I forgot all about the council votes. I guess moo2 was a much better game than I thought. Hehe, I guess I don't know what I want.

Maybe I'm still feeling the end-game bordem from past space strategy games...

btw, botf is probably the best space strategy game I have ever played. That game has a lot of flavors. I like the way each race is really unique. Their ships are different, unlike other games where all civs are basically the same, with same type of ships and colony buildings.

vmxa1 · February 10, 2002, 19:00

I only played it once or twice. I still play MOO Moo2 Stars Ascendancy Space Empires 3 and 4 and Stun/Stun2.

Garth Vader · February 11, 2002, 11:16

btw, botf is probably the best space strategy game I have ever played

I didn't like BOTF. It was a pain micromanaging your building in the early game because in order to finish upgrading in any sort of time you always had to spend money to finish a build. Since you were always upgrading something I was always clicking through my planets to see if I could rush something.

Plus your description of late game tedium sounds like you were describing BOTF, as that's exactly how I would have described it.

The races were cool but I also really like designing my own ships. So there wasn't much I liked in the game, except the ST flavor.