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Decisive Battle option


Teckelmaster

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Hello there,

i have played a few custom battles now, but i wonder if we could get an option, that prevents enemies from running away? I call it decisive battle. Do not know the common term.

Just so i do not need to build EVERY ship for 40 knots, as at some point the AI WILL run away?!

Sorry if we had such a discussion already, but i think the "Alpha 3 thread" grew more like a "small-calibre-thread".

Teckelmaster out

 

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1 hour ago, Teckelmaster said:

Hello there,

i have played a few custom battles now, but i wonder if we could get an option, that prevents enemies from running away? I call it decisive battle. Do not know the common term.

Just so i do not need to build EVERY ship for 40 knots, as at some point the AI WILL run away?!

Sorry if we had such a discussion already, but i think the "Alpha 3 thread" grew more like a "small-calibre-thread".

Teckelmaster out

 

You want a patch that forces the AI to commit suicide? So far for me at least the AI's decisions to retreat are reasonable - it is clearly losing, so it tries to run, and early enough it is very hard to run it down because you are wary of its remaining shooting power. Exactly the smart thing to do.

If it waits until all its guns are silenced or something, it'll be much easier to catch.

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4 hours ago, Teckelmaster said:

Just so i do not need to build EVERY ship for 40 knots

You do not need to. The AI only runs away if

A-) his ship is grossly outmatched (you design a massive battleship and the enemy is a poor lone 35k tonner. Hey, would you stay and fight if you were in their boots?).

B-) the ship has been so heavily damaged that it's combat efficiency has gone to hell (accuracy receives a pretty sharp penalty with structural and/or flooding damage) and the AI feels it's best option is to try to run away.


The A-) version can be tricky if you don't get lucky with some long range hits that impair the enemy's speed. Because then if he's faster he'll flee. If he's not faster (and you don't need 40 knots to be faster than most ships), then it's a matter of slowly reducing ranges and peppering him with shells until something critical goes (engine, some flooding that critically slows him down, that kind of thing). Then it's just a case of finishing it off.


The B-) version is just a gimme. Structural damage reduces the top speed of the damaged ship. If he is turning tails and running away, chances are he's already hurt enough to have dropped his top speed. Same deal, chase and kill with the added benefit that the enemy probably will already be hurting enough as to not need any furthering slowing down.


If anyway the enemy proves uncatchable - too bad. Your ship is too slow. Get used to give them more speed in the designer. But no, you don't need 40 knots to do that. And if you need 40 knots that means the enemy has invested in a specially designed ship to be exceedingly quick and run away from opposition it can't fight. He has compromised other things in his ship (weapons, armor, displacement) to achieve that speed while you have not. Why should you receive a "free card" to force him to fight at any costs?.



Both scenarios can feel inconvenient but both are immersive and realistic. That the AI knows when it's time to get the heck out of dogde is a good sign of a competent one.  

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1 hour ago, RAMJB said:

You do not need to. The AI only runs away if

A-) his ship is grossly outmatched (you design a massive battleship and the enemy is a poor lone 35k tonner. Hey, would you stay and fight if you were in their boots?).

B-) the ship has been so heavily damaged that it's combat efficiency has gone to hell (accuracy receives a pretty sharp penalty with structural and/or flooding damage) and the AI feels it's best option is to try to run away.


The A-) version can be tricky if you don't get lucky with some long range hits that impair the enemy's speed. Because then if he's faster he'll flee. If he's not faster (and you don't need 40 knots to be faster than most ships), then it's a matter of slowly reducing ranges and peppering him with shells until something critical goes (engine, some flooding that critically slows him down, that kind of thing). Then it's just a case of finishing it off.


The B-) version is just a gimme. Structural damage reduces the top speed of the damaged ship. If he is turning tails and running away, chances are he's already hurt enough to have dropped his top speed. Same deal, chase and kill with the added benefit that the enemy probably will already be hurting enough as to not need any furthering slowing down.


If anyway the enemy proves uncatchable - too bad. Your ship is too slow. Get used to give them more speed in the designer. But no, you don't need 40 knots to do that. And if you need 40 knots that means the enemy has invested in a specially designed ship to be exceedingly quick and run away from opposition it can't fight. He has compromised other things in his ship (weapons, armor, displacement) to achieve that speed while you have not. Why should you receive a "free card" to force him to fight at any costs?.



Both scenarios can feel inconvenient but both are immersive and realistic. That the AI knows when it's time to get the heck out of dogde is a good sign of a competent one.  

I don't see why we can't have a "Never disengage" option just for custom battles. The whole point of custom battles is quick action and testing dumb designs. If I want to build a 120,000 ton behemoth that only goes 15knots I should be able to without having to worry about the enemy trying to flee.

This only applies to custom battles of course. Campaign should be as set in reality as possible, where dumb unrealistic/unbalanced designs will be at a severe disadvantage.

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I do not see, how the OPTION to switch runaway mode off is different from the option to set the initial distance. Or different years of technology. Seriously, if the enemy decides to run away, for whatever reason, then how did he get 1000 m in front of my guns in the first place?! That is not THAT much more realistic?! If we were going for 100% realistic approach i would actually read a book about naval action in ww1 and ww2. History is real. A game is fiction. Let my fictive enemy be suicidal, who cares why?!

Teckelmaster out

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21 minutes ago, Teckelmaster said:

 Seriously, if the enemy decides to run away, for whatever reason, then how did he get 1000 m in front of my guns in the first place?!


There's a good list of reasons why a sudden short encounter can happen. Sunrise for one. Sailing into a fog bank that suddenly clears up. For other. But that's not the point.

See, the range setting doesn't decide how the AI reacts, fights , or chooses to act. The range setting decides at which range the battle starts. Not how the AI behaves.

You're asking for the player to have the power to cut off the AI's decision making. And just because you want to see enemies blowing up for free. Which I guess is cool and stuff, but for that purpose why having an AI at all?. Just let the ship sit there looking and not even fighting while you sink it.

What's the point of this "feature" you ask for, other than giving you a free go at blowing up stuff that has no option to fight back because it's either completely outmatched, or is so damaged it just can't keep on fighting?.

Why do you insist on developers to waste time and effort in this "feature" to be coded and implemented, when there are so many other, sensible and quite frankly far more important things to be done to develop this game towards it's completion?

 

21 minutes ago, Teckelmaster said:

History is real. A game is fiction.

There are many kind of games. Some are fast action paced arcade games where dakka-dakka for the sake of dakka-dakka is the whole point.

Others are not. Simulations, for one. Or strategy games which intend to portray the real importance of real decisions in a given environment, be it in battle or out of it.

A game doesn't have to be completely unrealistic just because "it's not real". In fact simulations pretty much are defined by them being grounded in "what was real" in whatever they simulate. Otherwise they stops being a simulation and turn into something else. And UA:D is intended to be that - a simulation, both strategic and tactical, about what mattered in the age of the Big Gun Dreadnoughts.

Not to be "Lemmings" but with big guns.

Edited by RAMJB
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(Posted somewhere) was that the Dev’s were working on disengaging intelligence which seems to be working pretty damn good, makes for realistic combat. Rather than knocking it or switching off this development wouldn’t it be better to encourage its path to whatever end? Like brainstorming for recovery of lost targets or as akd posted.

Or such as, if we could design every ship in the fleet then we could design chasers or scout ships to track the targets and send detachments to intercept. Best would be scout planes.

Anything that makes the AI ten thousand times better that any other game is worth it!

Edited by Skeksis
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Once had a full health AI battleship flee from my nearly sunk battleship. It was a 2v1 and I managed to sink one of the AI BBs, leaving be in the teens of structure and low twenties on flotation and only able to make 3.7kn. If the AI decided to engage, I was sunk, that was a certain outcome. It decided to flee with its completely undamaged BB instead.

I agree that the AI flees too often.

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3 hours ago, RAMJB said:

Why do you insist on developers to waste time and effort in this "feature" to be coded and implemented, when there are so many other, sensible and quite frankly far more important things to be done to develop this game towards it's completion?

I do not want to speak authoritatively on something I do not understand, but I do not think adding this as a selectable option would be difficult. Aren't there already several missions where the AI will not retreat? The behavior is there. I think if players want to simulate some sort of "last stand" by an enemy fleet, let them. Something akin to Japan's Ten-1-Go or Germany's 24 October 1918 Operation.

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4 hours ago, CenturionsofRome said:

Once had a full health AI battleship flee from my nearly sunk battleship. It was a 2v1 and I managed to sink one of the AI BBs, leaving be in the teens of structure and low twenties on flotation and only able to make 3.7kn. If the AI decided to engage, I was sunk, that was a certain outcome. It decided to flee with its completely undamaged BB instead.

I agree that the AI flees too often.

That hasn't happened to me yet. Did it happen in Alpha 3?

But then, even if it did happen, it's not like it's unknown. A lot of people think Kurita should have stayed and fought it out, and at least some would have said that Scharnhorst and Geneiseau should have stayed to fight the thinly armored Renown. :)

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I'm finding the AI is running way more often than just when it's been heavily damaged.

Yesterday I tried making a small armoured cruiser that was only 8k tons, armed with 6" guns and it got put up against an AI design that was just under 12k tons mounting heavier 9" & 7" guns, thicker armour, and greater speed. 

Outside of lucky torpedo hits tipping the scales my ship should have been doomed and indeed was starting to get chewed up until the AI randomly decided to disengage despite still being at 92% structure with no critical damage vs my 75% with a knocked out bridge. No torpedoes were in the water, it just suddenly turned and left still loaded with ammo, holding every advantage. 

And no I didn't quit before the ship reengaged at longer ranges, it just sailed off

 

 

Edited by AML
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On 12/17/2019 at 9:03 AM, AML said:

Outside of lucky torpedo hits tipping the scales my ship should have been doomed and indeed was starting to get chewed up until the AI randomly decided to disengage despite still being at 92% structure with no critical damage vs my 75% with a knocked out bridge. No torpedoes were in the water, it just suddenly turned and left still loaded with ammo, holding every advantage. 

And no I didn't quit before the ship reengaged at longer ranges, it just sailed off

Think of it this way. You don't know the context of this battle (the game doesn't tell you). Maybe he is like Graf Spee - far from home and unable to afford even 10% damage. Maybe 100 main gun shells is all he can spare for you. Maybe he just needs to hit you enough to discourage you from chasing him. Maybe he misidentified you. Maybe the commander just is a wimp - hurray, psychological factors are simulated!

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here is the thing though...

ships being total cowards and retreating at even the slightest sign of danger or that the battle might be turning against them is actually totally realistic and authentic behaviour, so i'm kind of OK with it.

even just a single warship (even just a so much as a DD, let alone anything bigger than that) is an infinitely precious asset compared to a single plane or tank, it takes A LOT of time and money and crew training ect... to build one, you can't replace them willy nilly, and your nation don't have a lot of them to begin with. people get the distorted opinion from action movies or video games and whatnot that warships are available aplenty and navies won't care about throwing ships away at a relatively non-crucial mission or sacrificing their own ships to sink the ennemies and not care much about casualties, like in a tank or plane fight, but with ships. this isn't the case at all. when they hear "naval battle" most people think of a big clash of warships that shoot at each other untill all or nearly all ships on one side are sunk, but this really wasn't the case, because admirals and commanders are always simply terrified of losing their irreplacable ships, they will retreat at any sign things might go bad.

if you look at history, almost All naval "battles" were really just a touch-and-go skirmish between 2 fleets if you get down to it, where some ships on both side were sunk or damaged, then the fleet that took the most initial damage retreats (often abandonning behind damaged or crippled ships to their fate) and that's that. the victor of the battle is the one who did the biggest damage and got the other fleet to run away, but almost always, the bulk of the fleet runs away rather than commit. even at jutland, the biggest naval "battle" in history, the bulk of both fleets didn't really fight when they come in contact to each other full brunt, they almost imediately both turned away, both too afraid to take a decisive battle that whould decide the war in one day. it was mostly just the vanguards that did most of the actual fighting at jutland.

battles like Tsushima or Surigao straight where one of the fleets was totally obliterated are the exception, not the rule. at tsushima it happened because the russian ships where too slow and too far away from their home waters, so they couldn't run, even though they tried. at Surigao  it was because the japanese ships were literally trapped at the end of a long and narrow corridor (straight), to retreat they would have to turn back the way they came and that whould have been too long.

now what the game should do however, is definitely count the battle as won and give you victory if all enemy ships are retreating. then like in a total war game, you can click victory and go on if you want, or you can spend the time to try and catch whatever fleeing ships you think you can catch, then click victory after that. that whould be fine if they did that. but changing the AI to be totally YOLO-Suicidal and throwing away their ships when it's not worth it (like having no problems to sacrifice a damaged Battlecruiser on a commerce raid mission if that means they can sink all transports, rather than retreating the Battlecruiser and sending it to repair) or every single ship continuing to fight a battle that is clearly lost rather than retreating, please no.

Edited by Accipiter
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This is about "Custom Battle". Not about historic approach. Nothing about custom battle is realistic, as it did not happen that way. It is only a request for one more option!

I might think different on historybased or even fictional scenarios. But this is called custom, as in customizable, as in create yours.

And none of the enemy ships are unique and irreplacable assets, as in this game you replace them by mouseclick.

I do not care about the state of mind of the people that are the crew of my ships, as long as no such function is implemented. IF at any stage in the campaign the accuracy is affected by the fact, that my crew thinks i throw them away, i will do what i can. Once i could name the captains of my ships, i will start building a relation, i guess, and try to keep them alive.

And i think you might want to tell a japanese officer to run away from battle in the late part of the war. I do not see that happen. There are many examples of fighting to the last man/the last grenade and be it only to buy time (It may be non naval, but Leonidas?!). But i do not care, i do not need a story in my head to fight a specific battle on my Computer.

And again, if it is optional, leave it the way you like it. Noone HAS to switch "decisive" on.

It has become the same discussion as with imperial/metric. I really wonder why it is so hard to ask for an option, that is obviously NOT unreasonable, as long as it is an option. As long as programming time is reasonable, that is. And as always i totally agree to that, but any other argument is completely subject to personal taste and an option gives (obviously) the biggest liberty to the biggest amount of people, while not having an option (obviously) will always hinder the liberty of -at least- one group of people.

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Oh, OK then, but does the computer get to be informed about how it is now categorically banned from retreating, so it should build ships with 40 inches of armor, maximum damage absorbers (bulkheads) and 20 knot speeds for a fight to the death? And are the buttons "Leave Battle" and the combination Alt-F4 disabled?

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10 hours ago, Teckelmaster said:

And i think you might want to tell a japanese officer to run away from battle in the late part of the war. I do not see that happen.

Yet that is exactly what happened. And several times over. Yamamoto didn't push his massive surface fleet to the gates of Midway at a point where the US carrier force was mostly spent (Yorktown KO, Enterprise and Hornet's attack squadrons depleted) and the american surface forces only had cruisers at best to oppose Yamato and the cream and crop of the japanese battleline. He called off the operation and turned back home . Kurita didn't push through Taffy 3 and the escorting forces either. He turned tails and ran, which ended the Battle of Samar when he held all the cards to cause devastation on the american invasion forces. Mikawa didn't push towards Lunga after he had destroyed several cruisers. He withdrew his forces leaving the american invasion force alone. Do I have to go on?.

But japanese officers never ran away from battle. Of course they didn't. Not once. That's a widely known "established" "Fact". That is "widely known" nobody will deny. That is a "Fact"...now that's a different thing. Because no, it's not a fact. It's pure legend, like so many others that don't resist even the simplest attempt at validation. The japanese were far more reluctant to withdraw that any other nation, this is true. They also were involved in many suicidal operations, that much is also true. But that doesn't mean "they never ran away from battle". Because that's just both ludicrous, and completely false.
 


But of course, "you do not see it happening". Like many other things. I mean, I really don't want to sound rude here, but if you want to push for a given feature, just stop arguing for it based on made up historical grounds that aren't real. It might be a problem with me being an OC a$$hole but when I see how much people quote "historical facts" that are neither historical, nor facts,I just can't help but wonder why so many people insist on trying to make points out of history, when they don't know enough of that history themselves.

At any rate, my opinion on the matter has been stated, no need to beat a dead horse. You want that feature to be included, be my guest and keep on asking for it, but please do it on the basis of your own personal wishes for the gamemode to be a stomping ground where you can roflstomp inferior forces at will - that's perfectly acceptable. I will disagree with it, but it's a valid reason to ask for that feature.

Just please do not do it on the basis of making wrong historical references that, simply stated, are out of context and not true..

Edited by RAMJB
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I do not have to make stuff up. There are plenty of examples all over history, where retreat just was not an option and yes you sound rude. But since you always claim to be a naval warfare history expert of some kind (and just implied i was not, which is funny), you would be aware.

I push nothing, i just suggest an option i cannot find to be not reasonable.

i will not argue any historic stuff in a gaming forum - any further that is -, as there are so many people around here, that already do, i could not contribute anything new, but i think an option, a simple switch might profit the game. 
And, of course, by setting the switch to „no run away“, the computer will be well aware of his situation, i guess. I am not sure, if my computer will be hurt in his feelings, but i will ask the terminator, if one is sent from the future, promised. Sorry for sarcasm.

I directly address the moderators when i ask, if it is allowed/wanted to give that kind of input, as i made a suggestion that cannot be incredibly difficult to implement and i supported another idea, that may be slightly more difficult. But each time i am confronted by certain people with more or less historic excuses or offensive reactions that insist it was unreasonable. I just do think different and argued. I admit i fell for the bait and started arguing historically, which i will stop from now on. But i wonder, if it is possible to simply bring in a simple request this way, or should i simply stop caring and wait for the result?

 

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you made up that i make things up

owww wait.. 

Do we want to go down that road or do we want to have fun?

I am trying to have fun in the game and all my suggestions do not influence your personal experience, as long as they are optional. So you do not have to change your gaming behavior, but other people might actually enjoy the game even more, i really really believe it is a win win, as they might sell more games the better it is, for even more people. Increasing the chance for long term support and anything beyond. 

 

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You:
 

38 minutes ago, Teckelmaster said:

you made up that i make things up


also you:

 

12 hours ago, Teckelmaster said:

And i think you might want to tell a japanese officer to run away from battle in the late part of the war. I do not see that happen.

That's making stuff up, implying that japanese officers (and soldiers) would never run away from a battle in the late part of the war (When there are plenty of instances of them doing just that even in the early part of it).

Now, look: I really am done with this stuff. I don't care about having the last word on anything. But what I'm not going to let anyone do is to suggest I'm lying "or making things up", when I'm not. If you go that path, you'll be forcing my hand in making me answering when for all intents and purposes I'm done here.


Now I'd suggest you to leave it at that as I really intend to do too, because this is turning into something awfully like a personal fight. One I'm not looking for, one I'm not trying to get into, nor one I intend to be a part of in a civilized public forum.

You proposed a feature. I disagreed with that proposal giving arguments of why. You still think your proposal has merit, and I still disagree. All good, fine and dandy. We're both done here, let's agree to disagree, leave it as what it is. No need to keep this up :).

Edited by RAMJB
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One last thing, then i agree. I did not mean japanese never surrendered, but there were specific times they sacreficed all and everything rather than retreat. That is all.

BUT i do not intend to argue historically. I think i finally understand your point, that (i believe) is, that this raw pearl of gaming happens to be a fairly accurate naval combat game and (i think) you want it to stay that. I agree on that. Fully. My whole point is, that it can be both, accurate AND with a little tweak slightly more „arcade“. And by such a minor tweak suit both kinds of games.

So, if you agree to the following, i call my nuclear first strike submarines back to port, send a delegation with flowers, sweets and a bottle of scotch (imaginary that is, unfortunately) as a sign of good will and do not consider that a retreat but a mutual agreement and cease fire? I always prefer that, as a solution, but cannot be done alone.

Now, let us grow a proper beard and raid some seas.

Teckelmaster out

 

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7 hours ago, Teckelmaster said:


And, of course, by setting the switch to „no run away“, the computer will be well aware of his situation, i guess. I am not sure, if my computer will be hurt in his feelings, but i will ask the terminator, if one is sent from the future, promised. Sorry for sarcasm.

...cannot be incredibly difficult to implement and i supported another idea, that may be slightly more difficult

 

I think this is for me, but I'm not sure if you understood what I am trying to get at. If you want to ban the computer from running away without it completely becoming Easy Mode, you need to let the computer know in the Design Phase and it must be given the ability to usefully respond. You simply build different ships depending on whether you think running is an option. For example, Graf Spee or any battlecruiser is designed with running away in mind. If you want to change the game rules, to keep up the challenge level it needs to know that, so it doesn't enter the fight with this 40-knot battlecruiser that's clearly optimized to run away once things start to go south, but design something for a slugfest.

Even then, it is probably making the game easier because in reducing the number of responses you have to prepare for it makes your life easier. But if you "lie" to it telling it everything is normal and it can build those runaway ships only to trap it when the game starts ... well, that's making it a bit too easy for yourself, don't you think? The only honorable justification one can have for intentionally reducing the computer's options is on realism grounds, and if what you are proposing isn't realistic, well ultimately you are just making life easier for yourself, no?

And if you include the time cost of making this new AI (or at least subroutine for this specific scenario), when the first AI isn't done yet ... now that's not so cheap an addition, isn't it?

I suggest first we get all the AI, gunnery and damage models all done and perfected for "Normal Mode" first before trying to add the "arcade mode" stuff.

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