Speed Bumps and School Zones

Speed issues and new suggestions.

from GalCiv2 Forums
There has been quite a kerfuffle regarding speed issues now that there has been an indication that some form wing-clipping is forthcoming. For those that may have missed the particular post: AI computations increase exponentially as the number of possible moves increases. Net result? Super-fast ships are not something the current AI has been designed to deal with and can unbalance the game.

Proposed solutions to this involve reducing ship speed in one way or another. From the posts I've read, they seem to all revolve around various combinations of the following basic ideas:

1. Increase the size of the engines so less of them fit on a ship.
2. Limit the max number of engines per ship.
3. Diminishing returns on speed gain with each additional engine added.
4. Introduce some sort of speed cap relative to galaxy size.

I'd like to propose a few more for general consideration and feedback:

Gravity Well Generators - These would be star base modules that you could add to military star bases. Their effect would be to slow ships that enter the star base area of affect much like the Yor super-ability (which I think is great!). Like other star base modules, this slowdown would increase as more modules of that type are added. Perhaps with maximum modules the slowdown would be equivalent to the super-ability. This might mean that before you bring in an invasion fleet, you'd be forced to clear out the military star bases first rather than just fly right past them. This would make them even more useful as I often ignore them and just fly past. By building these modules, you'd effectivly be able to shape the space-terrain a bit yourself to aid tactics.

Nebulae - This would be another form of space-terrain. The slowdown here could be either a fixed cap or a % depending on play balance requirements. Is it better to fly around with fast ships or fly through? Also, sensor range could perhaps be halved here too. Because nebulae would be considerably larger than asteroid belts, the slowdown associated with them would be more meaningful. Asteroid belts now slow your ship to 1 but it doesn't make much sense when it's so easy to fly around them. The idea here is that a nebula would serve a similar purpose to a mountain range: They are not impossible to traverse, but difficult. Small paths or gaps between nebula might also serve as natural choke points. Planet position close/far from nebulae would be a big strategic factor.

Both of these suggestions I think would not only provide speed reductions (in certain areas) but also introduce strategic elements because they are non-uniform (unlike the first ideas). The enhanced space-terrain would make for much more interesting fleet movements.

I don't play the Metaverse (like Kryo's hull mod too much), but make no bones about the fact that my strategy involves fewer fleets of fast ships and I always gun for the Eyes of the Universe as do many others. I enjoy guerilla tactics rather than large wars of attrition and generally play gigantic galaxies. My concern over *major* speed reductions is that guerilla warfare won't be possible anymore. Clearly speed 40-50+ ships can be problematic but maxing out at 15-18 might be too limiting.

I'm all for play balance, but please take caution not to limit strategic variation too severely when achieving that balance.

Well, there it is. Gimmie the Siskel and Ebert.
8,172 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I give it thumbs down, sorry.

While I would like to see military starbases made abit more useful, your suggestion would require alot of work on the AI to get it to actually use them effectively. They would actually have be smart enough to set up multiple bases to provide enough coverage and then to recognize these as high priority targets of the enemy and dedicate fleets to defend them... ppl would just send a fleet to destroy a base making a hole then thier super fast 80+ transports would swoop in from halfway across the galaxy and start taking planets...

the Nebulae just sound like an annoyance unless the whole galaxy was covered in them they would do nothing to address the key problem.

I say again that im for limiting the number of engines per ship. But I also think that it should be something that should be easy for mod ppl to edit, so those that want to play the old cheese way can still do so but not be able to post to the Metaverse, which is only for games that are played by the devs rules.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm a fast-ship user, but I can't see how either of Ps!borg's suggestions would help with the AI problem re excessive possibilities to consider.

Ps!borg offers a very nice summary of the AI problem, at least as far as I can understand what I've read around here. But his suggestions seem rather detached from that concise statement about computation burdens. Wouldn't new "terrain" elements with speeds up to 80ish *add* to the burdens on the AIs?
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's kinda funny, since it was announced that speeds would be reduced, there's been a load of suggestions about how to compensate. I've seen threads on wormholes,stargates, and now nebulae. All of these are not addressing the real issue, which is the AI handling such things. I don't see the AI dealing with ships that can warp through to another part of the map any better than it does with a ship with 40+ moves. It's been pretty much laid out that engine size and cost are going to be the main factors to reduce speeds. Any work arounds that put ships zipping across the galaxy in a few turns only puts the AI back in the same boat. While some of these are quite interesting ideas. I think most should be considered possibly for future releases, because between DA and all the other projects the devs are dealing with, it just isn't feasable to change the game mechanics so drastically, as most of these ideas would require. I by no means am putting down anyones ideas. I'm just trying to be realistic with my expectations of what can be done to the game at this point.
Just my 2bc. Thank you for your time.  
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The second part of my post was perhaps not as clear as the first...

My additional space-terrain ideas are not meant as an *alternative* but rather an *addition* to speed reduction.

I was hoping the new *max* speed might stay higher than 15-18 (say 22-25 maybe?). I'm aware that, due to the exponential nature of the problem, a speed of 22 may be effectively just as impossible to deal with as 80+. But only Brad would know that for sure.

G.W. you are right in that the speed-limiting terrain ideas don't solve the AI speed problem directly. But, they might help the AI defend against a problem caused by it: The blitzkrieg.

In addition to generally slowing the ships down, if there were some defence measures that the AI could use, it might alleviate the problem and allow slightly faster speeds to managable in general. Not 80+ speeds but perhaps 20+ speeds.

Additional AI would be required of course but I thought it *may* be manageable. The nebulae would require additional pathfinding (around and through) and there might need to be a way for it to recongnize choke points and bias scout/fleet placement there, etc.

The starbase gravity wells would probably be much more challenging in that they are dynamic. If the AI detects one (or more) of it's planets have been conqured and it didn't even have any transports on it's radar (i.e. blitzkrieg potential), it could assume a large speed differential and include a slowdown strategy in it's defence algorithm. (Of course by then I suppose if it was a full blown blitzkrieg it would be too late anyway   )

I know that is overly simplistic but while additional AI programming would be required, It's not obvious to me that it would be beyond the scope of DA.

Regardless, thanks for the feedback. This game has captivated so many of us. The amount of time we take discussing it's nuances it testament to this!
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's been pretty much laid out that engine size and cost are going to be the main factors to reduce speeds.


Agreed, but there's nothing wrong with further discussion here. What I'm afraid of is we end up with a new set of dynamics that are less fun (tedious to be exact on large maps) or that the AI gets even slower. The other problem is that it may cause less diversity in ship design.

There are other imaginative ways of fixing this, like making range an issue which would force ppl to have life support on thier ships. (and maybe make life support bigger too).

Don't get me wrong, I want something done here to level the field for the AI. I just don't want to see it done by crippling everyone...





Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Making range an issue would help as well.

One possibility- warp drives don't stack, impulse drives only add +1 if you have a warp drive. Engine tech doesn't add to your speed. Warp drive size becomes very inefficient with large/huge hulls. Slower ships would increase the need for sensors as well, as you'd have to predict things, and would increase the use of speed boosting/slowing starbases.

Another possibility- only 1 warp and 1 impulse engine can be used on a ship. Better Impulse and Warp Drives become avaliable later on in the game.

I don't find late game ships breaking the 8 speed rule, but it should be rare/expensive. If you don't have a ton of those ships, the AI should be OK.

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It seems to me that there should be a diminishing return as you increase the number of engines providing thrust. Both the cost and the size of the engines should increase, to reflect the increasing complexity of the power generation and fuel transfer systems.

Periodically along the propulsion tech tree, you could have a side branch which allows you to reclaim some of this 'lost' space by focusing on a particular multi-engine system. Naturally you have to consider whether it's worth investing in such research when every tech increases the cost of researching future techs.

If range was more than a minor inconvenience, then having range decrease as engines increase would be another solution. That's the 'light that burns twice as bright burns half as long' angle.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think the maximum speed should be determined by the size of the galaxy. gigantic galaxy's should have a speed limit much higher than tiny ones. I really like the idea of gravity wells, and nebulae.

on an off-topic note I want to see ships that can attempt to withdraw from combat when 1. they are faster than the opposing ship, 2. are going to die. this worked pretty well in some of the civ games. with so-called fast units
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think the game would be plenty interesting if most ships were to move 10 squares per turn or slower. I doesn't change strategy that much, except that you have to plan your moves more turns in advance, and your enemy has more turns to react to your moves.

The ideas I like so far are:
1) Make engines larger and more expensive. You should have to pay (a lot) to get a speed advantage over your enemies. If your ships are much faster than your opponent's, then a smaller fleet of lower-tech ships, like the defenders the AI has orbiting his planets, should be able to put up a good fight, or win. I think engines should have a large sizemod, so that big ships aren't faster than small ships.

2) Diminishing returns for engines. This is a good way to limit extreme speeds, while still allowing complete freedom in ship design.

3) Make warp engines work differently than flat-space engines. One type could add speed to the ship, the other type could multiply the speed of the ship. One type could have diminishing returns, one type could have a hard cap on the number of engines. There are lots of possibilities here, and it fits well with the plot of the game.


Ideas I don't like:
1) Hard cap on ship speed or hard cap on number of engines. This takes decisions out of the hands of players and makes for some obvious "best" ship designs.

2) Cap on ship speed that scales with map size. It should take a long time to cross a big galaxy, that's what makes it big. The only reason that I would choose to play a large map size is because of the new strategic situation due to the fact that it will take a long time to get anywhere. Having a large number of planets doesn't matter to me, and that can be adjusted in other ways if it matters to you.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I still hope that the ideas for gravity wells and nebulae and considered by the devs. But, upon further reflection I can see that mechanisms like these are not realistic for DA at this point. I'll chalk it up to a brain-fart and leave it at that. DA is in beta, not pre-alpha. Nonetheless, I really like the idea of more varied space terrain

So, that said, my $0.02 would also be:

Diminishing returns for engines. This is a good way to limit extreme speeds, while still allowing complete freedom in ship design