Asymnetric Fleets & Rejiggered Weapons

You are ahead of most modders by thinking through game design rather than just throwing a bunch of unskinned models and the necessary entity file changes to make them work into a RAR. These sort of projects are awesome. ManSh00ter did DBM with Sins assets and it turned out fantastically.

I'm going to tackle the last part of your post first as it's going to have a much larger impact on the first point than the first point has on it.

You may find this interesting - scroll down to Damage and Repair. I've implemented this myself, and what's neat about it is that it throws Sins' strange circular pacing out the window. You end up with a very linear gameplay path in which you can create separate stages of gameplay - early/mid/endgame is clearly delineated because larger ships obviously end up having larger and more effective guns. Scale is also impacted - the guy with the big gun early in a certain 'phase' can bring that advantage to bear (quite literally). In games we've found that this is a very positive mechanic - it allows for really limited units to still be a real shock when they're encountered, because Player X just brought in the Heavy Goddamn Destroyer. Then you get another hour in (if they're still around) and everyone's fielding Heavy Goddamn Destroyers and the new Big Ship is slightly out of reach. It's addicting and provides a nice sense of scale. It seems like you're not going for this sort of approach in favor of large guns on smaller ships, but keep in mind how you can use those damage types to enhance pacing.

What you'll want to probably do, though, is either reduce the damage capital ships do (since I assume they'll have the heavier guns) or remove the free one at the start of the game. What I think is so awful about Sins' "hero" approach to capital ships is that it completely bucks scale. You have the really awesome ship at the start of the game, and by the time the other cool ships are available, they're just really powerful frigates, and some guy probably has a few too.

This is something I did not do, however. It's great in theory, and it makes a lot of sense, but transitioning from a system where DPS numbers are front and foremost the way you figure out what hits the hardest (thanks to Sins' very simplistic view of unit roles) to one where weapon types matter more is already a pretty tough pill to swallow. The entire game is designed around DPS - accuracy is simply a DPS reduction, particle effects don't match up to hits, DPS is prominently displayed on the infocard. I think that if you want to stick with this you should make sure it is trivial, because you're already stretching usability (I want to say, though, that this isn't a bad thing: it's something Sins should account for if it were truly a really moddable game).

Yep, standardization here is a MUST. Feel free to overlap , but you absolutely have to keep this as standardized as possible. A autocannon should always do ANTILIGHT if you want it to do ANTILIGHT. Like I said before, this is already a huge difference from Sins, and so if you cheat a little usability is out the window. Not asserting you'll do that, but I've been tempted. "Light" and "Heavy" on the names of weapons will be your friends (but again, should be kept to a minimum).

Simply changing these values will allow for a very drastic change. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

You can find in-game names for weapons in the String files.  It would be quite possible to have LASERTECH weapons show up as "Autolaser" weapons and have LASERPSI weapons show up as "Laser Cannon" or something similar.  There are also a few unused weapons in there, so those can probably be changed around and added back in, assuming the code behind them wasn't removed.  Entrenchment also added in the SPIRITBLADE (Advent Psionic Surge) and CHAOSBOLT (Vasari Disintegrator) weapon classes, so you could always replace those with something a bit less ridiculous.

One other thing: If you want the AI to work at all (as in not throw a tantrum and crash) then you will want to leave the ROLETYPES the same (in name only) That way you can still have an AI if you need to.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement.  I'm still parsing it all out.  I'll post a more coherent game balance plan / etc. once I get a satisfactory one together, cross-referenced to feasibility.

I see what you mean, Carbon.  The very tough pill I currently have with Sins is counter-damage modifiers; if I turned around, said "weapon types intuitively matter," and then built another complexly weighted system... chaos would ensue.  

Naming, scheme, maybe things like:

Autocannon (Anti-Light)

-or-

ACV Battery (Anti-Armor) 

You'll run over the string length limit if you do that. I'd just make it relatively intuitive and provide a good readme.

Argh, looks like the forums ate the latter half of my post, too. I wrote up a huge thing about your first point. Oh well

edit: aha, found it

Keeping old ships relevant is good. However, I think simply reversing their role later in the game is kind of a lazy mechanic. Sins does it, a lot of RTS games do it, I think you can avoid it. Since you can't make ships aim worse, why not expand gravity wells and increase weapons range on artillery ships, then keep the Cobalts around as the only ship in your fleet that has the speed and maneuverability to hit them? Maybe alternatively, throughout the game, players could research an ability or two to keep them worth buying with larger ships, such as being able to deny area to another player through AoE attacks, or slow down an enemy's refire rate? Perhaps slow angular momentum, forcing the other ships to only use their (assumedly more ineffective, lighter) rear weapons against the light frigate or something. There are much better ideas I'm sure, and it all depends on what % of your other units have really heavy armor. If light ships are being kept around later in the game, the Cobalt'll stay relevant, but if everything has really thick protection, I'd advise you try to build abilities and tactics around the ship's existing role (but not streamlining it into a rock paper scissors situation like Sins does) just for the player's sake.



This sounds good. Roles are consistent but unique. You're going to want to expand tactics a bit through abilities & research.




You can improve the countering aspect with a more linear design, but any way you do it it's going to be interesting and more dynamic than base.



Forget the AI. If you make something like this your project it'll be fun to you and probably a wide range of people. The first time we sat down and played a alpha version of the mod I'm working on it was completely broken in so many ways - maps were completely untested, half our units were using placeholder models and not firing correctly, all sorts of crap, and we played for five and a half hours. Go for it.

I've through tentative dynamics a little more.  Basically, summarizing what I'm looking at for a weaponry/armor adjustment:

 

1. Weapon Anti-Armor Capability vs. Armor Weight DPS Multipliers

These are used to simulate the effects of Hard Armor.  A (proto) matrix of them:

               ANTI-VL / ANTI-L / ANTI-M / ANTI-H / ANTI-VH / ANTI-CAP

VL-Armor 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%  100%

L-Armor 50% 100% 100% 100% 100%  100%

M-Armor 25% 50% 100% 100% 100%   100%

H-Armor 10% 25% 50% 100% 100%    100%

VH-Armor 1% 10% 25% 50% 100%    100%

CAP Armor 1% 1% 10% 25% 50%     100%

Progressively lower multipliers as one uses lighter weapons on heavier armors represent the decreasing effectiveness of fire, until only eventually only the luckiest shots can find a weakness.  This creates a battlefield environment where heavy armor is capable of defeating the "hail of fire" effect: massed foes with anti-medium weaponry, for instance, are capable of wearing down even very-heavy armor... but at a highly disadvantageous return of 25% DPS inflicted.

In this context, fielding heavy weapons becomes very important.  A balance key is to retain the importance of other units.  EX:, heavy armored units vital for force protection, lightly armor supporting fire ships necessary for cost effective firepower, and fast frigates capable of flanking battle lines, and getting among fire support and other lightly armored but high-threat vessels.

Also of note, there's no "bonus" for bringing overpowered weapons to a fight: all things considered, the most cost-effective weapon for a given target is probably a weapon of precisely the same weight.  For this reason, a dynamic would (hopefully) emerge where - for instance - immediately investing in a capital ship while all the other tech is only up to frigate level is not necessarily cost effective: all those big guns are certainly highly effective, but also costly, and don't necessarily resolve the battle more effectively than a fleet of frigates with guns that are exactly equal to the task.

Once players start fielding heavily armored vessels, though, that cap ship becomes your Ace of Spades.

Numerical armor, as currently in Sins, is retained.

2. Damage.

Although weapons with greater anti-armor capability are generally higher damage as well, this is not universally the case.  Whereas anti-armor capability quantifies the ability of weapon to penetrate the inert armor carapace of a ship, damage quantifies the amount of disruptive energy that a weapon can actually deliver into a target.

EXAMPLES:

Strike Craft Autocannon.  Anti-light, Very Low Damage.  Autocannons are very low damage, but their solid, massive slug slightly aids penetration.

Gauss Cannon, Magnetic Sabot Munition.  Anti-Very-Heavy, Medium Damage.  A hardened penetrator delivered at extreme velocity, punching through armor.  However actual energy transfer to the target is inefficient.

Particle Beam.  Anti-Capitol, damage varies by weight.  Accelerated heavy particle bolts are almost impossible to armor against, since they transfer their energy efficiently into whatever they hit.  However, the amount of energy (damage) varies with the beam projector.

3. Weapon Types.

As highlighted above by Carbon, having weapon names totally consistent with roles will be important.  I.E., all "autolasers" are the same, all "phase missiles" are the same, etc., as far as their damage multipliers.  Damage can vary to reflect multiple mounts, higher intensity or ROF, etc., but the basic weapon remains consistent in its capability.

Q: Does anyone have a listing of the types of damage weapons do, the effects of that in the game mechanics?  Or is the difference between, say, "physical" and "energy" damage actually meaningless?

Q: How much flexibility is there in terms of the display name of a weapon?  How many weapon types can actually be supported in the game, and can the display names vary from this?  [I.E., if I were to need more weapon names than actual "weapon slots" the .exe can utilize, could this be solved by displaying different names for some generic weapon types?  This would be to retain the player's ability to intuitively identify weapons via their unique names.  EX: Advent "Autolaser" and TEC "Autocannon" could in such a scheme could both be display names for a single generic weapon.]

4. Weapon Ranges.

Carbon's Dawn of Victory link is cool stuff; worth checking out.  I like their approach to expanding gravity wells and creating a broader spread of weapons ranges.  In this context, I can see how tactical maneuver and a good fleet layout are highlighted.  Deployment of thin-skinned, high-firepower weapons platforms becomes an interesting choice: can they inflict cost effective damage before the enemy's long range fire or attack frigates reach them?  What if the enemy can deploy extreme range, high ROF weapons to attack such weapons platforms?  

Putting it together: A brief example:

Squadrons of autocannon-equipped fighters strafe a Kodiak cruiser, delivering 100 points of damage as it lumbers towards their host carriers.  However, these are anti-light weapons, and the Kodiak has Very Heavy armor.  The vast majority of AC rounds shatter on its hardened alloy armor.  The remainder chew apart antennae, find vents, and otherwise erode at its tortoise-like exterior.  The Kodiak is not impressed.

Bridge calls Gunnery: "What d'you hear, Gunny?"

[Gunner listens to the rattle of AC rounds bouncing off the hull.]  "Nuthin' but the rain."

Bridge: "Grab your gun and bring the cat in." 

Gunnery loads the Gauss Cannon with a sabot round and fires.  The hardened penetrator possess the same kinetic energy (100 damage) as the hail of autocannon fire, but it is a single Anti-Very-Heavy armor attack.  The target carrier has Heavy Armor.  The Sabot punches straight through the exterior armor of the carrier, and inflicts its 100 damage to the vessel, minus the usual numerical armor equation reduction.

 

 

A1:  You mean the difference between energy and physical damage?  Aside from a few abilities affecting one or the other (Advent Radiance's Energy Absorption and TEC Sova's Heavy Strike Craft), the game treats it all the same.

A2:  There is a limited number of weapon names Sins can handle.  From lines 8301 to 8345 in the vanilla English.str are the strings for in-game displayed names of weapon types.  You could however set the values to whatever you wanted and it wouldn't matter to the game.  If you mean "Autolaser" and "Autocannon" would both be display names for the same weapon type, no, that isn't possible; you would need to split them up.

StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_AUTOCANNON"
    Value "AutoCannon"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_BEAM"
    Value "Beam"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_CAPITALABILITY"
    Value "Ability"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_DART"
    Value "Kinetic Bolt"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_FLASHBEAM"
    Value "Pulse Beam"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_GAUSS"
    Value "Gauss"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_ION"
    Value "Ion"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_LASERTECH"
    Value "Laser"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_LASERPSI"
    Value "Laser"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_MISSILE"
    Value "Missile"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_PHASEMISSILE"
    Value "Phase Missile"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_PULSEGUN"
    Value "Pulse Gun"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_PLANETBOMBARDMENT"
    Value "Planet Bomb"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_PLASMA"
    Value "Plasma"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_WAVE"
    Value "Wave"

Those are all the weapon types you could re-name in vanilla Sins, and Entrenchment added the CHAOSBOLT (Vasari Disintegrator) and SPIRITBLADE (Advent Psionic Surge) weapons.  And no, the "PLANETBOMBARDMENT", "ION", "CAPITALABILITY", and "DART" weapons are to the best of my knowledge never have their names visually displayed in Sins, so they are all fair game.

Thanks!  Exactly what I needed.  

No problem, glad I could help with a mod like this that tells Sins's uninspired hardcounter gameplay to go screw itself.  I don't mind hardcounter gameplay when its logically done (AT rockets being poor anti-infantry weapons due to low accuracy and slow fire rate like in CoH), its just when infantrymen (Imperial Guard in this case) can take anti-tank rockets to the chest and laugh it off like in Dawn of War I get annoyed.

I am continually amazed at the brilliance and creativity of the modders here and I just wanted to say I believe it is the moddability of Sins that is going to make it not disappear...especially when well thought out mods-as-games concepts like this and Dawn are created.  Good luck on the mod! (I am running behind trying to catch up).

Thanks for the kind words everyone...   and I should admit up front on my end: I'm just taking it one step at a time.  I have no modding experience, and I'm very appreciative of all the advice from vets.  It's really the engine that's moving my thinking forward.  I don't know how far I'll get, but it's a fascinating process, and what would please me most is to have this exploration generally be a useful contribution to the community. 

I really like Carbon016's observations, both in post and on the Dawn of Victory site, about the linearity vs. cyclical pacing, and the implications of the early capship.  Definitely good reading; still thinking about that a lot.

Taking a digression to the "Asymetric Fleets" aspect, on this post:

Because what I'm exploring an "asymetric fleets" approach, I've been working on the racial doctrine-level aspect of it.  It's 100% SoaSE, just... "tweaked."  

A major implication I've been hitting is that, not only do asymetric fleets strongly influence individual player tactics, but they make make inter-racial alliances and combined battlefleets more important.  I.E., since every race brings more unique vessels to the table, each will be able to exploit tactics that others cannot.  If the fleets are well balanced while being asymetric, then combined alliance fleets will have the most versatile, comprehensive capabilities.

Below is race-level concept work.  I've divided it into an overview, sub-principles, and "counterforce", which speaks very briefly to the (1) weaknesses of the doctrine, and/or (2) the adapting-to-the-enemy research aspect of the game.

This obviously very generalized.  I thought it would be better to look at the big picture first, and use it to guide specific fleet & tech modifications:

 

TEC Military Doctrine

TEC forces are the least expensive, least technically advanced, and backed by the best economy.  TEC doctrine has evolved to counter other TEC-like assets, which is logically consistent by the game starting condition of fragmented TEC-like worlds.  The Advent “reappear” and the Vasari are new arrivals.  Whereas the Advent forces are tailor built for anti-TEC action but suffer from a relative vacuum of practical experience (and the Vasari are a savage, experienced force so utterly mauled that they lack the majority of even their basic unit designs), the TEC war machine has a balance of military experience and practical infrastructure.  A product of much civil infighting and economic hubs, they believe in the efficacy of static defenses and simple, robust vessels.  In game terms, TEC player(s) represent the emergence of a brilliant and resourceful leader(s) on an initially backwater TEC world.

TEC Principals of War: Doctrinal Specifics

Capitol Ship Doctrine: Flagships.  TEC caps historically act as flagships of battle groups, self-sufficient from each other and usually surrounded by a force of lesser craft.  Only the Dunov is designed as a predominantly support vessel.

“Keep It Simple, Stupid.  Guns, nukes, and steel.”  TEC put their trust in heavy metal: armor, cannons, missiles, nuclear weapons, big industry.  The old stand-bys.  The results: cheap, robust ships with the worst shields and simplest weaponry, built like bricks.

“Get there first with the most ships.”  Produce, produce, produce.  The TEC economy delivers the requisite materials to churn out massive fleets.  They utilize all branches of heavy industry, including salvage.

 “Built the right tool, and the job becomes easy.”  TEC doctrine focuses on a broad core of cruiser and frigate designs.  Rather than try to build “one-size-fits-all-foes” uberships, TEC innovation and market-force design processes excel at producing many different designs for specific roles.  TEC has more vessel designs available than the other races.

Counterforce: Faced with the Advent and Vasari, TEC designs as initially fielded may rapidly be eclipsed, particularly 1:1, since Advent vessels are specifically designed to counter them.  TEC must spool up the war economy and adapt fleet composition and vessel technologies to match these strange, sophisticated foes.

 

Advent Military Doctrine

Advent vessel designs and doctrine are formulated to defeat TEC.  This is a war the Advent have prepared for.  However, onset of hostilities occurs sooner than expected, leaving many vessels still in development when the first shots are fired.  In game terms, premature launch of the long-awaited campaign is precipitated by either the arrival of the Vasari, the emergence of a dangerous TEC leader(s), or both.  Advent civilization possesses objectively inferior economic capacity, but is highly technically advanced.  Heavy reliance on superior shield and energy weapons technology allows them to field a militarily comparable if not superior per-unit force, despite a lesser heavy industrial capacity.

Tenets of Forced Enlightenment: Doctrinal Specifics

Capitol Ship Doctrine: Mutual Synergy.  Advent caps are designed to operate in mutual-support groups, bolstering each other and the surrounding fleet.  Given the tendency for historic TEC powerhouses to dispatch self-reliant caps with cruiser-frigate battle groups, the Mutual Synergy Doctrine is a logical way to demolish TEC cap assets, one by one, using the concentrated force of multi-cap-ship Advent “Synergy Groups”.

“Higher Unity through Combined Arms Warfare” & “The Illuminator Doctrine.”  The Advent doctrine further emphasizes force-wide synergy.  The Advent Martial Hive-Mind initially envisions an Offensive Trinity: strike craft, illuminators, and cap ships, with other vessels providing mix of support, force protection, and auxillary power.  The theme?  Combined arms and anti-armor weaponry.  Illuminators and Advent bomber wings were designed specifically to counter TEC heavy armor.  Illuminators are so central to Advent offensive anti-battlefleet strategy that some might characterize the general Advent battlefleet strategy as “the Illuminator Doctrine.”

“The Bomber will always get through”: Strike Craft Dominance.  Noting a perceived weakness in TEC fighter air superiority capabilities, the Advent have invested heavily in developing a lethal strike craft and light carrier force.  The Advent’s highly compressed technologies, AI, and consciousness-uploading technology are well suited for this.  Theory calls for utilizing fighters to secure air superiority, then deploying bomber assets with special weapons to demolish heavy TEC vessels and structures while fighters lacerate enemy frigates.  Perhaps in arrogance, the Advent rely on fighters for fleet defense and do not field a dedicated flak vessel.

Transcension: Defensive plans leans heavily on the still-developmental Transcendia Starbase.

Counterforce: Advent forces are theoretically “perfect” and tailor made to kill TEC, but the Advent have a comparatively weak body of actual combat experience.  The difficult realities of vac war are about to come crashing down on them, where ECM and the psychic shock of mass death disrupt the Hive Mind, and making a “perfect choreography” impossible.  The Vasari will be a bloody surprise, with their phason armament and the horrific psychic shock that Vasari mind-contact can cause Advent sensitives.  Likewise, the Advent underestimate TEC’s ability to produce diverse and direct counterforce.  Advent research & vessels must rapidly be adapted to account for the realities of war.

 

Vasari Military Doctrine

Traditional Vasari fleet doctrine is built upon large battle groups of capital-class (and larger) ships.  Frigate and cruiser weight vessels are auxillaries.  Roles recognizable in the current conflict - long range fire support ship, heavy battle cruiser, assault ship, etc. - are all traditionally occupied by multiple classes of specialized capital ships.

The Ugly Truth: The Vasari have "the wrong fleet for the wrong fight."  Their strategic objective is continued Exodus, not a solar empire.  The Vasari intention is to drain this system(s) of resources, build exodus fleet ships, and leave.   Technologically, the absolute capabilities of the Vasari "should" be far in excess of either TEC or Advent, but the Vasari who arrive on-scene are a mauled remnant of a single destroyed fleet vessel.  Especially early, Vasari units have coherent roles are of high individual quality, but are oddly matched to the current conflict, necessitating tactical dexterity.  

Along with their fantastic technologies, the Vasari have some grinding handicaps:

• Insufficient designs for frigates and cruisers adapted to the current conflict.
• Serious informatic voids: Total design loss of most Dark Fleet capital ship designs.  Loss of all hyper-capital design and construction capability.
• Inoperable Doctrine: Vasari doctrine, crippled by the loss of central assets, is unable to account for the current conflict.
• Defunct Economic Reliance: Traditional Vasari strategies of building immense, highly advanced fleets were supported by a seemingly inexhaustible industrial juggernaut – which is of course conspicuously absent now.  No “civil society” came with this remnant, only fleet Vasari – meaning very little of the Vasari’s hyper-advanced industrial technology has survived.

This serves to place the Vasari more-or-less on parity with the other players.

The Art of Savagery: Doctrinal Specifics

Vasari Capital Ship Doctrine: Backbone Force.  Vasari caps, in their full (and lost) variety, fill most of the roles that TEC and Advent cruisers fill.  Starting Vasari capships have marginal synergy, and have somewhat odd roles compared to the relatively “classic” roles of the Advent and TEC caps.

“Close the Technology Gap.”  Vasari stand to benefit more from research than the other races, and have more total research options.  There is a lot they “half-know.”  More than other races, the Vasari benefit from increased capital slots.  More cap designs are available via research and fill powerful tactical roles.  The Kostura itself is a mobile capital "frame weapon" ship.

“The only true faith is faith in the Fleet.”  Mobility doctrine.  Ships are better than static defenses.  No Orkulus Starbase.  The Vasari expect the Nameless Enemy is to appear at any time.  All static structures will have to be abandoned, sooner if not later.  The Vasari anti-starbase weapon is a vessel.

As in current SINS, the Vasari will need to play a more pronounced "asymetric game," early game.  If a Vasari player can get counterforce and capital research online, and the resources to back up heavy vessel production, the "guerrilla" Vasari can eventually produce the most terrifying individual chunks of metal in the game.

Counterforce: Many Vasari vessel prototypes are counterforce developments, as the Vasari develop expedient sub-capital ships to “plug the gaps” in their battlefleet capability.