can the real time combat be fixed? |
this is my problem - i set my strategy to optimal firing, with wall formation.
i have a 12 ship task force. 3 drone carrs , 4 missile ships and 5 cannon armed ships. plenty of ordinance and supply.
i attack a planet hoping to take it with pop intact. i don't want to attack the planet's facs. i want them so i dont have to build them. that seems a fair thign to want to do, right? why kill millions of enemy pop when they can be used in other ways?
1st problem:
i have no control over the drones. they charge right ion and, annoyingly, attack the planet first... whilst the two tiny little sats destroy them. the planet isn't even firing at them but the sats are but will they do anything about it? no. they'll fire at the planet until all facs there are destroyed. insane. i try to turn off automove/attack but it resets.
2nd problem:
i am constantly amazed by the stupidity of the task forces. they will fly to a planet and fire on it whilst sats happily lob missiles at them until i have no ships left. it's as if the sats are invisible [NO!!! they are not cloaked... this is the last planet on the enemy empire and they are level 1 on almost everything].
i cannot order my units to fire on anythig other than the planet. they just dop't want to do anything other than destroy planet first... which means i can't do ground combat cos there's nothign left.
whenever there is sats near enemy planet i cannot land troops cos my ships won't go near the sats. i can get cannon armed ships to fire on sats but i have to break formation on all levels but that doesn';t stop the drones and rest of them rushing in and ignoring auto orders after i cancel them.
is there a fix for this? a mod? MOO3 had a great community for this kinda thing and tho MOO3 was horribly bugged modders still struggled to get it right and all respect to them for trying [and sometimes succeeding!]
as it is, this game is not really playable when a huge fleet of level 5-8 ships cannot take on 2 level 1 sats. the strategy real time combat [erm... well... you watch the battle of dots] is just as badly screwed up.
so far i've seen nothing nor no one say anything that addresses this issue. do i just have to accept that i will have to massively swamp the most basic of enemies and take horrendoes losses to play this part of the game?
i'm really not enjoying this game until i can get this right. what's the point in weapon tech when it won't be used? i may as well not bother and keep on with level 1 everything.
can someone PLEASE tell me where i'm going wrong here? it would be great - tho embarassing - that it was just me doing somethig wrong and not crappy coding.
thanks
ras
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
What are the targeting priorities for your current strategy? Also, if you're interested in capturing the planet, you may also want to use the "Capture Planet" strategy as well for the fleet.
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Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
#1. Thats what drones do and are supposed to do.
#2. check out all the attack options available for your fleet.
If you just send an entire fleet at a planet with just an "attack the planet" order, everybody dies. You must manage your fleets or they waste everything in their preset order of importance.
Give the game a chance, don't just load the AI up with everything and expect it to act human in 10 turns and give you a challanging game. This game takes time to work into its stratagies and if you give it that time you too will see it happen. Its like fine wine, give it a chance to age and mature and you will get the game you want.
I am currently on turn 339, own 1/2 the universe in a stock, 20 person game, am running 80 and 100+ ship fleets against the AI 100+ multiship (and varied types in their fleets) fleets with full tech on them, and I don't have ANY problems. I started out giving the AI as much advantage as I could while starting from a single planet. If you give the game AI enough time to work out its stratagy you will see all sorts of behaviour everybody screams about that the game needs and doesn't have, but really it does have most of it.
People say it doesn't mix ship types & hull sizes .... yes, it does.
People say it doesnt take over planets(not destroying them) ........ yes, it does.
People say it wont declare war on a human player ..... yes, it does.
etc. etc. etc.
My favorite saying in here is " ITS NOT Command & Conquer " which IS totally brain dead. If you want to make fleets and send them off with a neanderthal KILL order, thats what you get. If you learn what controls and options there are without going off half cocked about what a crappy game you bought and nobody else should buy it, thats what you get too.
Most of the stupid way the game acts is not its fault. Take the time to learn the controls and maybe try reading some the more intelligent comments in here and you will have a much better game experience.
(ps. if you want to take a planet intact tell the Troop Transport to drop troops on the planet FIRST! Then the other ships will leave the planet alone, except for maybe the first target order which you may need to clear due to planet proximity at the battle start if you came in cloaked)
People that want to bad mouth and discredit something just because they dont understand how it works really p_ss me off.
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
This absolutely can be fixed in a general sense. Getting the right mix of targeting priorities is critical, and no mix will be ideal for every situation.
It isn't sporting but if you must win at all costs, you may have to alter these on a battle-by-battle basis depending on whether or not there will be weapon platforms present, or bases, etc. Of course this can't be known without recon, so to do it like a pro you need to have a scout probe the planet's defenses first before your main attack force enters. Use this info to customize the strategies, and you should fare very well indeed.
The reason I say this isn't sporting is because the AI can't alter its own strategies, and probably wouldn't use a scout that way either. It might send 20 ships at a target, one-by-one, but it'll never really learn anything from the results.
Task force strategies differ from individual ship strategies, and can't be altered in game. I intend to investigate these and see what, if anything I can improve. If a situation calls for tactics which the TF strategies are preventing, one can always set the ships to break formation immediately. It's ugly, but it can be effective in many circumstances.
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
So Dvoongar, are you going to fix this with your combat mod?
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
Synchro, drones always ram planets no matter what.
Somebody has said that you can change this in the VehicleUnitTypes.txt.
As for the other ships, you gotta set their strategy to "capture planet" before you attack.
Thirdly, make sure your ships have weapons that can target satellites! If you've got these huge weapons that take out bases in a few shots, then they're not the kind of weapons you can use on satellites.
Set strategy to "capture planet"! Stop genocide now!
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
As for the other ships, you gotta set their strategy to "capture planet" before you attack.
Thirdly, make sure your ships have weapons that can target satellites! If you've got these huge weapons that take out bases in a few shots, then they're not the kind of weapons you can use on satellites.
Set strategy to "capture planet"! Stop genocide now!
i see!!!! ok, thanks for the help, guys. puzzles me why drones with drone attack strat should ram a planet. seems crazy as they have no warheads and wont do much damage.
bu the sats are still there slaughtering my ships. i think the break formation order is the only option cos nothing else works.
thanks again
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
I think that the sats have a bug relating to 1.35...
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
Well there isn't any Devs, there is one Dev. And frankly following his (Aaron Hall) track record with Space Empires 3 and 4, I have no doubt that any and all problems will be fixed for SE 5.
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
Well there isn't any Devs, there is one Dev. And frankly following his (Aaron Hall) track record with Space Empires 3 and 4, I have no doubt that any and all problems will be fixed for SE 5.
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
Except for the drones, it's pretty well fixed. I have a mix - some ships prefer to target sats and some WP's. Some will target pop and some won't. The player's got to pick what's right for the job.
I couldn't exclude pop targeting altogether, or the AI would never glass anything & players could just leave colonies undefended. The AI's the reason for a lot of the mixing in my doctrines. It'd be nice to go pure on some issues, but then the AI's predictible or even crippled.
Not all of the instructions are working properly, but you can set up a task force which will do this job if you're careful. The main trick is to distinguish between targeting the planet (Don't)and targeting the WP's (Do). And either change the Drone text or don't take too many drones.
May need to go short or point blank on the sats. Weapons and tactics have to work together. Not long ago, I made a fool of myself and found out CSMs won't target sats. This is true of other weapons also.
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
mate, you're breaking my heart. i'm so sorry i pissed you off. i'll get the world's tiniest violin for you, eh?
i'm bad mouthing because as i see it there are important elements that don';t work. what am i suposed to do? do a jig and pretend everything's fine? it's about perception. i perceived the game to be shagged. i tried various strats and nothing worked. i'm annoyed. sadly, we're all not blessed with the patience of a saint.
i 'moved to' the planet, not 'attack planet'. i set TFs for optimal firing. i figured that would be generic enough SO I WOULDN;T HAVE TO KEEP ALTERING THE STRATEGY EVERY TIME THERE'S A BATTLE! then, during a battle, i can control my ships to do what i want them to, ie, shoot down two crappy level 1 sats so i can send in my freighter with troopships. now, this is not rocket science... it's very very basic strat with a heavily outnumbered enemy. in fact, it is a C&C strat in that it should be VERY easy [C&C strat is to swamp enemy with biggest guns.. that's it... that IS C&C in my eyes... shite]... but it isn't , is it? cos i've watchjed my ships get wiped out by 2 tiny sats.
my plan was to use the drones to move and finish off the sats so i don't get one of my cap ships taking a pummelling and slowing the whole fleet down cos half its engines are gone [for some unexplained reason getting my whole TF to attack seems impossible as they sit off and attack one by one.. another really annoying thing].
the guns on the direct fire ships are standard DUC and the missile ships carry standard cap missiles. nothing fancy. did they destroy the sats? no, they floated over the planet and were wiped out by the sats.
i just wanted my ships to finish off the sats WHEN I ORDER THEM TO, and then MOVE AWAY WHEN I ORDER THEM TO. then i can send in the freighter with troops.
but no... the game wouldn't let me do that.
btw, i played C&C a thousand years ago and loved it.. the first c&C.. after that it was all the same. even the last one is pants. no strategy at all. just build lots of big guns and swamp enemy.. that's why i hate the term RTS for that game. it;'s not.. it's real time ONE strategy. kinda like eisenhower's strategy for ww2.
that is why i play games like this and hoi2... cos it isn't mindnumbing clicking. i know my strategy games. it's just expected that a certain approacxh would work cos, well, it's user friendly. now i know i may have to change whole aspects of my TFs for every battle... it's a bit much. some strats should cover all eventualities.
it's like playing rock, paper scissrs and saying scissors can't cut paper cos it's laminated. you assume certain things.
but now i know i'll work around it.
pffffft
a game should be enjoyable with some frustration. not just frustrating with some emjoyment.
but i do like the game. a lot. just a bit annoyed with this.
drones vs satellites
I feel your frustration, Syncrow. I changed the vehiclesunittext file and though it does give me control over the drones' direction, they still won't ram the sats. Well, they do 50% of the time.
It seems like they will ram the big sats but leave the small ones alone. Sometimes they ram the small ones...but usually not. I can't wrap my head around their behavior. It seems totally arbitrary.
I'm just going to wait for fighters and take those f*ckers out. I'm so fed up with trying to use drones.
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
Make sure the weapons on the ships attacking the SATs can actually damage SATs.
In v.35, the strategy settings don't work right. I set all my Strategies colony section to attack until weapons are gone but the ships still glass the planets. This worked fine in v.25, was crippled in v.33 and halfas fixed in v.35.
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
Hmm, I was able to get my drones to attack enemy sats... make sure you don't have the drones designed as anti-planet, with only anti-planet warheads. I usually use the standard ones...
With a drone armed with 3 standard warheads, 1 is enough to kill pretty much any level-1 tech ship or weapon platform. I sent the drones in first, before my fleet, and they auto-targetted the sats and blew 9 of them up. Don't put them in a fleet.
...course, they didn't have PD either, but in that case, I would send in only PD or direct fire ships and toast 'em.
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
Hey, I just did some testing - I setup a planet with some sats around it and fired drones at the sats (in the battle simulator).
Apparently, drones can get stuck if they have to rise over the planet. The only times my drones would actually hit their target is if they had a straight-shot to the sats... otherwise they would get stuck ON TOP of the planet (hovering over the north pole).
This could be part of the problem... pathing for the units itself gets confused!
Re: can the real time combat be fixed?
i just reloaded a planetary attack with just drones and noticed the drones ram the planet.
in fact, i have a feeling the ships are ramming the planet too cos i lose all of them, bar one.
they are not set to kamikaze. they are set to optimal firing range.
i cannot control them manually - well, i can order them to attack the 2 sats but they just one by one reset to ram planet. i turn off auto attack/move but they reset that too and continue to ram the planet. i think they got a few shots off if i keep pressing attack sats as they pass by before oblivion.
if this ins't a bug i dont know what is.
this is just annoying.
i just patched it to 1.35. i really hope this ins't just another lame XXX space game thatis going the way of the crapp/buggy/annoying game 'to be put back on the shelf' the way MOO3 and that other awful one, galciv, did.
it doesn't look good.
why can't the devs actually FINISH a game before releasing it?