Tactical FTL Jump Proposal - Version 2! - Cosmoteer Official Forum

Tactical FTL Jump Proposal - Version 2!

Walt

Last week I posted my proposed design for a short-range tactical teleport called "blink". The discussion and debate that followed was really great and helpful, so much thanks to everyone who participated in that discussion. What follows is version two of that proposal.

I won't regurgitate my original idea, since it has changed substantially and you can still read my original post. But most of the debate that followed centered around two big questions:

Should blink work like a regular FTL jump in that you issue a blink order and then crew have to go power up the drive, or (as in my original proposal) should the drive have to be continuously fed power to stay "charged" and then blink is instant once a blink order is given?
Should blink require a separate "Blink Drive" that enables these short-range teleports, or should any ship with a regular FTL Drive be able to blink?

The first question seemed to have a pretty clear consensus: most people came down on the side of making blink work like regular FTL, and I've come around to this viewpoint as well. The excellent reasons include:

Having a delay between issuing a blink order and the actual teleport creates more interesting counterplay and makes deciding to use blink a more interesting, potentially-risky decision.
Being consistent with the way regular long-range FTL works is more intuitive and less strange from a lore standpoint.

The second question had much more debate with many good reasons on both sides. The arguments favoring separate parts include:

It makes blink more "special" because it's something that only ships specially-outfitted with Blink Drives can do.
It makes blink easier to balance, because the cost, size, and even the underlying efficiency equation of the Blink Drive can be changed separately from the FTL Drive. (And because FTL Drives have different amounts of usefulness in singleplayer vs multiplayer, an FTL Drive that is priced optimally for singleplayer might be too expensive for multiplayer, or vice-versa.)
It's less weird from a lore standpoint if you have one part that uses fuel (as is planned for the FTL Drive in the future) and a separate part that uses power rather than a single part that can use either fuel or power depending on whether you're making a long-range jump or a short-range jump.
While conceptually similar to FTL, it has a very different gameplay purpose, and having a separate part allows players to specialize their ships to be good at one or the other without having to be good at both. (In the future, ships may be able to share their FTL ability with other docked ships, meaning you could build ships without FTL entirely.)
It simplifies the user interface for displaying blink & FTL efficiencies because only one efficiency needs to be displayed at a time, whereas a combined efficiency calculation would likely need to simultaneously show two different "interpretations" of the underlying efficiency at the same time (a "good" FTL efficiency is much lower than a "good" blink efficiency.

And the arguments favoring the same part include:

It's better to have a single, unified system than it is to have two separate-but-similar systems which might feel too "same-y".
It's strange from a lore standpoint if the FTL Drive can jump lightyears but can't jump a couple hundred meters.
A ship that wants to be able to be able to both blink and jump now needs both Blink Drives and FTL Drives.
FTL Drives will be useful to have in multiplayer.

My current view is that the advantages of having a separate Blink Drive and FTL Drive outweigh the advantages of having a single drive that does both. I think the lore advantages of each option balance each other out, and I'm not personally bothered by having parts that aren't useful in multiplayer. That leaves the "single drive" option with the advantage of not requiring the player to build both blink and FTL drives (which is at worst a minor nuisance that will be somewhat lessened if ships can share their FTLs) as well as the advantage of not having two separate-but-nearly-identical efficiency systems. But the more I think about it, the more I think that blink & FTL should actually use pretty different efficiency equations and won't be as similar as I was originally thinking, as I will explain further below.

So here's the latest proposal...

Long-range FTL jumps and short-range tactical jumps will be provided by two different parts (the existing FTL Drive and the new "Tactical Jump Drive") that use completely separate efficiency calculations and will (eventually) use separate resources (FTL Fuel and conventional reactor power) to power their jumps.

The Tactical Jump Drive (TJD) and the FTL Drive (FTLD) will each have their own separate efficiency calculation:

The TJD will use an efficiency calculation that is fairly similar to how the FTLD currently works. That is, the TJD will have a similar sized (or maybe a bit smaller) efficiency area around it that falls off with distance. The primary difference is that, unlike the current FTLD, the efficiencies of multiple nearby TJDs won't add together, and I might also make the efficiency falloff exponentially. Both of these changes would make placement of TJDs more important and make achieving maximum TJD efficiency harder, which I think are good things for a part of such great tactical value. (You'll need a bunch of TJDs scattered relatively evenly around your ship.)
The FTLD will also still use an efficiency calculation, but the underlying numbers will be changed signficantly. The efficiency area of an FTLD will be greatly increased while the base efficiency (closest to the drive) will be reduced from 100% to something around 25% and possibly also have an inverse-exponential falloff so that their efficiency doesn't drop as fast with distance to the drive until it reaches the edge of the efficiency area. This has the effect of making FTLD placement less important (allows clustering of FTLDs, which I think is good from a lore standpoint), making maximum FTLD efficiency more expensive to achieve (which I think is good because it creates more range of choice in how much to invest in FTLD efficiency), and making FTLD more cost-effective on large ships which have less wasted efficiency area (which I think is also good from a lore standpoint), and, once FTLDs can be shared with docked ships, gives FTL drives a large enough efficiency area that they can potentially be shared with docked ships.

The FTLD's efficiency will basically have the same effect that it currently does; that is, a high efficiency reduces fuel usage. In the long-term, once fuel has to be stored on ships and is carried to the FTLDs instead of power, this will also naturally mean that lower-efficiency ships will take more time to power-up for an FTL Jump, which will also be influenced jump distance. In the near-term, I may make it so that FTLDs require a variable amount of power based on efficiency, distance traveled, and number of FTLDs.

And here's how the TJD will work:

Once your ship has at least one TJD, a new "Tactical Jump" button will appear next to the other command buttons. Clicking this button (or its hotkey, probably J) will let you set a tactical jump destination. Once a destination is set, the crew start bringing power to the TJDs. The amount of power required by each TJD is roughly proportional to the equation (MassOfShip * DistanceOfJump) / (TacticalJumpEfficiency * NumberOfJumpDrives). Once all of the TJDs are fully powered, the ship immediatey jumps. The actual jump is very quick, just a quick jump-out animation followed by a jump-in animation.

This is not a regular ship command in the sense that it replaces or queues after the current movement/attack command; it exists simultaneously with the ship's other commands, meaning that you can still maneuver your ship while its TJDs are spinning up. The destination location is also not fixed in space; it's actually relative to your ship's center point, meaning as you ship moves, so does the destination. (Though if your ship rotates, the destination does not rotate around your ship.) You also cannot set an exit orientation for your ship, so whatever direction your ship is facing when it jumps is the direction it'll be facing afterwards.

A tactical jump that is in the process of being powered up can be canceled, but doing so will immediately drain all power from all TJDs, wasting the power. Changing the destination of a tactical jump cannot be done without first canceling the current jump, meaning changing the destination will also waste the power and require the drives to be re-powered.

A ships TJD efficiency will also impose a hard limit on the distance that it can jump such that higher-efficiency ships can jump farther than lower-efficiency ships. (This is important to prevent singleplayer expoits like jumping clear across the map just by waiting a really long time.)

I am also considering having tactical jumps potentially drain power from the rest of your ship, and maybe even causing damage & fires as well if the distance is great enough. The amount of power drained and/or damage & fires caused will depend both on efficiency and distance jumped. For example, let's say that your ship has 100% TJD efficiency...

At 50 meters, your ship starts losing a percentage of its power, up to 150 meters at which all power will be lost.
At 100 meters, your ship starts taking damage, up to 200 meters at which your ship would be destroyed. (Which the game won't let you do, so this would be the maximum jump range.)
At 150 meters, there is a per-tile chance of fires breaking out all over your ship which increases up to maybe 25% at 200 meters.

(Don't be too concerned with the actual distances here, they're just examples chosen for the sake of clarity and will be balanced as needed.)

When plotting a tactical jump, after clicking the Tactical Jump button but before setting a destination, the total amount of power to be used (all drives combined) will be displayed next to the mouse cursor, along with any power loss or damage percentages, so that you know what you're getting yourself into if you make that jump.

Lastly, although the underlying game mechanic will use an efficiency percentage, in the build UI the game will display the efficiency as a distance in meters, either the maximum distance the ship can jump or (if jumps can cause damage) the maximum distance it can jump without taking damage.

What are your thoughts on this proposal?

Namek

Walt I like it a lot, it seems balanced, and seeing a multiplayer battle with it will be very very interesting and more tacticle, this could very well be a counter to wall ships! And one question, how will AI handle with the TJD? Will they use it?

Sombreroman

Walt Maybe, to make the Drives more Suitable in Combat, they should use a Low amount of power, but also have a Cooldown before you can attempt a Tactical Jump Again. I also think the Drive should be smaller than the Average FTL Drive, as, In Lore, It isn't made to travel long distances, and thus should need less hardware to jump effectively.

samepage

Walt the TJD will have a similar sized (or maybe a bit smaller) efficiency area

Personally, I prefer the TJD having the same efficiency area like the current FTLD. As people who obsessed with 100% FTL efficiency might already have the design that does it. It's a shame for those designs to be completely remade.

Not sure about the FTLD change though. As it means a lot of redesign had to be made for ships without a centralized FTLD core. And right now it only matters in singleplayer playthrough.

Is it possible to add a space station in the future, that its sole purpose is to function as an FTL waypoint, boost up the FTL efficiency significantly for long FTL traveling? You know, like Star gate or Mass relay?

Elethio

Tractor beams sound cool

Walt Lastly, although the underlying game mechanic will use an efficiency percentage, in the build UI the game will display the efficiency as a distance in meters, either the maximum distance the ship can jump or (if jumps can cause damage) the maximum distance it can jump without taking damage.

PewPew Regarding the possibility of adding a jump interdiction device. I think it's not the best thing to do. The tractor beam would do much better, especially if we imagine it as a kind of "cable". On this basis, it can be envisaged that a separation as violent as a jump could cause damage to the parts touched by the tractor beam. This would prompt the player to make a choice: "Should the damage I risk be worth jumping, or should I try to destroy the tractor beam first?" I find this kind of choice more interesting than a simple jump ban.

If TJD's use mass in their efficiency calculation, perhaps Tractor beams could add more "mass" to the equation. effectively making longer jumps more dangerous, with a higher risk of parts exploding. It would also mean that bigger ships with more mass and more jump drives would be harder to effect with a tractor beam, especially if they're not jumping to their maximum range.

I'm liking the sound of all these tactical possibilities. When jumping, do you go for maximum range? or for a shorter jump, giving you a better safety margin in case of tractor beams?

Tobi-wan_Kenobi

Walt
The premise seems all good to me. Whether it will be tactically useful will come down to just how quick the charge-up is and how far you can jump, which can be modified in balancing. I'm glad you made rotation non-fixed. When I saw 'work like regular FTL jump' I thought you were going to make the jumper have to align for the jump (ew!). This will make it so you will probably also want your jumper to be maneuverable, rotation-wise.

My one complaint is that Tactical Jump Drive is a bit of a mouthful. I much prefer Blink Drive.

Dibs 2. It needs ACTIVE counter play. If you want the TJD to be effective and fun without being OP by not being countered or, conversely underpowered by any passive lockdown counter, any device designed to counter the TJD should be a button actively pressed by the countering opponent.

I actually agree with this even though I was the one who suggested that tractor beams counter it. It can't be passively countered by a relatively cheap and ubiquitous part. But perhaps tractor beams could reduce TJD efficiency by a small but significant amount, making it so that a TJD ship with multiple tractors targeting it would have a greatly shortened jump range. It wouldn't be a hard counter, it would be a soft counter.

As for an active hard counter - earlier I mentioned the idea for a jammer part to counter large missile salvos. When active it makes incoming missiles unguided. Walt suggested that jamming could be an alternate usage of the sensor array. Maybe the jamming could also disrupt TJD, completely inhibiting any jumping within about EB range while active? Or it could be targeted jamming, only affecting the ship you have targeted. The idea is that it disrupts TJD targeting/nav systems.

Lafiel a large electrobolt weapon could for example temporarily disrupt it.

This brings up an interesting question: If just one of the TJD parts is under fire from a power-draining weapon such as EB or EM missiles and is unable to achieve the necessary charge for a jump, will the jumper be unable to jump? Or will the jump efficiency just be diminished?

Dibs maybe have the possibility of randomised fires emerging from the module as well when used

I agree - the fire aspect is good. Fires need to be more relevant. I say make the TJD both cause fires in its room and take damage if you jump too far. The fires should be based on probability which increases with distance beyond safe maximums, and the part damage should be proportional based on distance. So you would always take part damage when jumping beyond max safe range, but fires would only have a chance of appearing.

Examples:
•At 10% beyond safe max range, each TJD tile has a 10% chance to catch fire. So you might only get a single fire sprite in each of your TDJ drives or you might get no fires at all). Your TJD parts take only 5% damage.
•At 50% beyond safe max, the fire chance is 50%. You might get a couple fires per TJD room. Your TJD parts take significant damage (like 25% of part max health).
•At 100% beyond safe max (double safe jump range), the fire chance is 100%, so every TJD tile catches fire. Your TJD parts take 50% damage.

Elethio If TJD's use mass in their efficiency calculation, perhaps Tractor beams could add more "mass" to the equation.

Yes, this was something we discussed in the tractor beam thread. I agree, tractor beams should just reduce TJD efficiency. A mass increase is a good way to do that, but it has the added effect of making ships slower and less maneuverable when targeted by tractor beams. That might be a good thing, or it might be something that Walt doesn't want to do with TBs. Would TBs actually pull a target slower if multiple beams were locked on, since the target has much more mass now? If TBs add mass, then it should probably be a flat mass increase per beam to the target, not a percentage increase.

Elethio When jumping, do you go for maximum range? or for a shorter jump, giving you a better safety margin in case of tractor beams?

I would think that if you're being tractored, your jump efficiency indicators would show it. But then of course you might start to be tractored only after you have activated TJD.

SpaceCat

Tobi-wan_Kenobi

Walt Long-range FTL jumps and short-range tactical jumps will be provided by two different parts (the existing FTL Drive and the new "Tactical Jump Drive") that use completely separate efficiency calculations and will (eventually) use separate resources (FTL Fuel and conventional reactor power) to power their jumps.

If TJ would use FTL-Fuel then it would maybe also be less desireable in multiplayer - and that woudl be really bad because TJ generally seems like custom made for multiplayer!

Tobi-wan_Kenobi And does it really matter that much that FTLs aren't used in MP?

as it is now it takes effort to build an FTL version of every multplayer-non-ftl ship.
yes it does matter - ftl costs credits and you do not want to carry it as ballast in multiplayer.

TJ and FTL beeing seperate systems is perfectly comprehensible BUT some use of FTL for multiplayer would make designing ships more consistent in a way we would see more of the singleplyer-ships in multiplayer (and/or vice versa).

SpaceCat

Walt I'm not personally bothered by having parts that aren't useful in multiplayer.

The FTL mechanic beeing not only a part but also a resource (fuel), i think you should care.

Multiplayer . . . . . and . . . . . Singleplayer . . . . . drifting . . . . . too . . . . . far . . . . . apart . . . . . does not feel right IMHO.

Especially thinking of Multiplayer-COOP here.

And shouldn't "fuel" be something that actually needs a container (tank, battery etc.)?
Credits beeing virtual is 100% comprehensible ofc but physical resources would need space?
(Yes i'm sooo looking forward to resource gathering/mining 😉 )

PS.: Discussing single elements of cosmooter has become very difficult because there are so much features projected for future that it is hard to imagine how the whole picture will finally look.

Walt

Namek AI handle with the TJD? Will they use it?

Ideally, yes, but I haven't thought that much about how exactly they'll determine when/where to use it.

Drakador_Chaos

Walt
Would it be possible to jump "on top" of other ships with the TJD? I´m aware this would cause quite some issues, due to the physics and all that, though it would certainly be interesting watching people using "cage"-like ships to trap smaller enemies inside them.

Walt

Drakador_Chaos Would it be possible to jump "on top" of other ships with the TJD? I´m aware this would cause quite some issues, due to the physics and all that, though it would certainly be interesting watching people using "cage"-like ships to trap smaller enemies inside them.

Probably not if the ships are actually physically overlapping, because that'd cause a lot of issues. Ideally I'd like to allow "cage" strategies and such, though that might be difficult to code the logic to allow that.

Sombreroman Maybe, to make the Drives more Suitable in Combat, they should use a Low amount of power, but also have a Cooldown before you can attempt a Tactical Jump Again.

Are you proposing this instead of having to power up the drive before each jump? This was discussed at length in the previous thread.

BattleCruiserCommander What I want to know is... will there be ANY way to stop this "jump"? I don't mean the player stop , but rather it can't be shot while being used. I know it would make jumping Impossible, but maybe make it where if the repair signal pops up,then the jump will deactivate. However, if the shots miss or hit shields, then the ship could still jump.

Maybe tractor beams, maybe some sort of jump inhibitor?

BattleCruiserCommander

What I want to know is... will there be ANY way to stop this "jump"? I don't mean the player stop , but rather it can't be shot while being used. I know it would make jumping Impossible, but maybe make it where if the repair signal pops up,then the jump will deactivate. However, if the shots miss or hit shields, then the ship could still jump.

Sombreroman

Walt Oh... Well, Yeah.

BattleCruiserCommander

Walt I think tractor beams could be easier to code and make, rather then Jump inhibitors. The Tractor beam could be a modified Ion Beam, maybe bigger or smaller, and it would only pull objects. It could even be powerful enough to pull shields off, but they would do no damage what so ever. It should be expensive, so tiny ships can't use it. Cause tiny ships wouldn't need those, since if they did pull a bigger ship, they are just asking to be blown up.

If the Jump inhibitors were added instead, maybe they could use that flak code? The one that when it shoots a bullet, the shot turns into tinier bullets, explosive-like?

Dibs

If this is going to promote tactical gameplay and add another layer to design philosophy for multiplayer, i think the following requurements must be met
1. TJD must be telegraphed. Opponents need to clearly see that the action is taking place and have a second or 2 to react.
2. It needs ACTIVE counter play. If you want the TJD to be effective and fun without being OP by not being countered or, conversely underpowered by any passive lockdown counter, any device designed to counter the TJD should be a button actively pressed by the countering opponent.

I think that sort of interplay would be fun

Walt

Dibs 1. TJD must be telegraphed. Opponents need to clearly see that the action is taking place and have a second or 2 to react.

The will see that the enemy is preparing to make a jump, but they won't know where they are jumping to.

Dibs any device designed to counter the TJD should be a button actively pressed by the countering opponent.

I'm not currently planning to add an anti-jump device in the same update that adds the TJD, but I generally agree with this statement if I do eventually add such a device.

Lafiel in addition to tractor beam countering the hop, a large electrobolt weapon could for example temporarily disrupt it.

EMP maybe?

Lafiel

There is one more tactical advantage to TJD that could be added in line with new sensor-weapon features: being undetectable for one second after the hop.

in addition to tractor beam countering the hop, a large electrobolt weapon could for example temporarily disrupt it. However, the firing rate has to be sufficient low to prevent continuous intervention which would make the large EB less useful for normal combat else. Unless, it's a separate effect/special fuel. Special fuel would go against the common power source idea, though.

Lafiel

Walt Yes, EMP is certainly one solution but because it's a (laggy) AOE I just wanted to forward a shooting weapon instead. Either is fine and I would have modded the other anyway, too.

Walt

BattleCruiserCommander I think tractor beams could be easier to code and make, rather then Jump inhibitors.

Tractor beams are also already planned.

BattleCruiserCommander It should be expensive, so tiny ships can't use it. Cause tiny ships wouldn't need those, since if they did pull a bigger ship, they are just asking to be blown up.

Well I can see making "tugboat ships" that are mostly just tractor beam + lots of engines.

BattleCruiserCommander

Walt Maybe a new ship could be added to Bounty Hunter (Called The Flying Meteor or somethin') And it would haul a (lightly armoured) weapons platform, and the ship hauling it would be heavily armoured, but under-gunned. The way to beat this craft would to destroy the hauler, since the Weapon Platform would have no engines.

This way people know how they work, how to use them, and how to destroy them.

Ultranova

Would it be possible to jump "on top" of other ships with the TJD? I´m aware this would cause quite some issues, >due to the physics and all that, though it would certainly be interesting watching people using "cage"-like ships to >trap smaller enemies inside them.

*Cue the Ion Anti-Printers 😛

Dibs

Seperate module vs Existing FTL module

My personal vote is for an add-on module for current FTL modules that, when connected to an FTL module, acts as a "restriction device" to allow the FTL module to be used on the smaller scale of a battlemap. The add-on devices can then be turned off to allow for normal FTL function

Walt

Dibs My personal vote is for an add-on module for current FTL modules that, when connected to an FTL module, acts as a "restriction device" to allow the FTL module to be used on the smaller scale of a battlemap. The add-on devices can then be turned off to allow for normal FTL function

Can you elaborate on why you would prefer this? Because it makes it a lot more complicated.

Dibs

It's a mid ground vote between the two proposals for new module vs Existing FTL. Operates internally in a ship the same as the old FTL but with the additional costs of the added module. Aside from that, it also means placing the devices needs to be a more centralised design and makes for a larger internal target for the opposition to aim for

Walt

Ultranova

Dibs I don't think that a mid ground is going to help in anyway. It's a nice idea, but what is the point in having a connecting part when you can have a separate part?

Dibs

Ultranova bigger internal target for opponents to snipe. Means theres more tactical decisions involved in where your shooting at with greater possibility that it might cause damage to the module. Otherwise these things will probably get burried deeper and harder and there's no interim negative between now and a possible counter device