Cloaked Mines, Sensors, and Fog of War

Dalas120

As balance stands, mines are... pretty awful. If an enemy plows through them they're deadly, but between small area coverage, pd/flak, and those big spinny red lights, they almost never deal meaningful damage. I think that mines are currently unique as the only surprise damage/area denial weapon, and I think that they should continue to focus on that interesting role. Unfortunately, they're currently not very good at it because 1) they're too visible (=avoidable) to be useful for surprise damage, and 2) they're too fragile and few to be strong at area denial.

To make mines more consistently useful without feeling unfair, I suggest:

Mines cloak when armed. While cloaked, mines are mostly invisible to the player (duh) and completely invulnerable to PD/flak, but cannot detonate. When an enemy enters detonation range, mines take several seconds to decloak (and visually show the detonation red circle, as well as the spinny red light) during which time they are vulnerable to PD/flak, and then detonate after decloaking. If an enemy leaves or is destroyed before the mine detonates, the mine will take several seconds to recloak. If an enemy or enemy shield physically hits the mine at any point, it will immediately detonate (whether it's cloaked or not).
Significantly increase mine detonation range and shrapnel range (say, 20->50 range = 400pi->2500pi area). This gives players more reaction time to back away from a mine before taking damage (stopping before physically hitting the mine, and backing away from the slow-moving shrapnel). Hopefully this would avoid the complaints that hard-to-see-and-instant-detonation 0.14.6 mines had.
Significantly increase mine repulsion range. This fits in with the increased detonation/shrapnel range, but also helps the same number of mines deny a much larger area, making mine hits less reliant on luck.
Significantly increase mine damage and HP. This helps compensate for the increased repulsion range - if there are fewer mines in an area they should deal more damage and be harder to kill.
Increase mine launch range. This also helps increase the area mines can deny.

The idea is that mines would be both more consistently dangerous and able to deny a larger area. The cloak and detonation time changes mean that mines are able to catch players unaware while still having a clear visual warning and giving players a chance to react.

And some QOL:

The mine spinny light should be visible to friendlies even when cloaked, and the spinny light should be green if friendly. Just to help players keep track of who's mines are who's.
Friendly mines should stay visible through the fog of war (if on).
Mines (and all missiles?) should not detonate when they hit a friendly ship, even when friendly fire is on. I view friendly fire as the "realistic" setting - bullets and other dumb projectiles wouldn't suddenly vanish if they touch a friendly. But missiles are smart enough to try and avoid friendly ships even with friendly fire on, so why would they detonate on a friendly ship they were trying not to hit? (most explosives are very stable and won't explode without a detonator)
BUG: mines will not detonate if the ship that launched them was destroyed/turned to junk.

If cloaking exists, the obvious thought is that sensors should be able to reveal it. But if all sensors do is reveal cloak (since FoW is off in tourneys), then I worry this leads to a hard counter situation where sensors are great if the enemy brings mines and uselsss wasted cash otherwise. So, if now is the time to make sensors and intelligence valuable, here's a proposal.

Right now FoW is off in tourneys because contestants can watch the stream to gain the same information. This is "strategic" vision - knowing the enemy's movements and plans, and I don't think there's any way to make strategic vision really powerful in a tournament environment. Instead, I think sensors can be valuable for providing "tactical" vision - actually seeing an enemy ship so you can lock weapons on it. Making tactical vision useful could be accomplished by:

Rework how sensors provide vision. Instead of providing vision in a huge circle around the ship's center, sensors should provide stackable directional vision. I know that there are potential performance issues depending on how this is done so I'm not going to make an exact proposal, but the idea is that one sensor would extend vision a certain amount in one narrow direction (relative to the sensor's position) and multiple sensors would extend vision further in the same narrow direction. The direction of vision could be rotated by rotating the sensor part, or maybe with a setting on the sensor itself (like a ship's flight direction, in which case a sensor with no direction/omnidirectional direction would increase vision in all directions by a small amount).
Allow sensors to detect cloaked mines. Any mine within a sensor's directional vision area would be clearly visible to the player, and targetable even when cloaked.
Decrease default control room sight radius (400 -> 200?), and base their vision circle around the control room's position instead of the ship's center. Right now just having a control room provides enough vision to use every weapon at it's max range. By decreasing control room vision, players need to use sensors (or spotter ships) to get full value out of long range weapons like EMP missiles and long railguns (and hopefully large ion prisms, at some point).
Have minimap sensor "blips" show ship silhouette and name. This prevents players from feeling lost/disoriented from the reduced control room vision. This also makes tournament "stream sniping" pointless, since you gain no extra strategic information from watching the stream.

The idea is that most ships would function normally on just control room vision, but long range weapons would need sensors or spotters to fire at max range. This also means that sensors would effectively increase the range of certain weapons, which is something people have suggested before.

Sensors would be good against cloaked mines, but if the enemy didn't bring mines sensors wouldn't be wasted cash.

Having a basic intelligence/vision system also provides a foundation for future parts like ship cloaking and larger control rooms.

Walt

Dalas120 To make mines more consistently useful without feeling unfair, I suggest:

This all sounds pretty good to me. Increasing shrapnel range probably also means they need more shrapnel (maybe shrapnel that explodes into more shrapnel after a certain range?). I'm a little worried that mines are too small to feel like they pack that kind of firepower and might need to be made bigger, which I'm not necessarily opposed to (aside from the work required to redo the art), but that'd also mean reducing the number that can fit in a launcher from 6 to 1-2.

Dalas120 Mines (and all missiles?) should not detonate when they hit a friendly ship, even when friendly fire is on. I view friendly fire as the "realistic" setting - bullets and other dumb projectiles wouldn't suddenly vanish if they touch a friendly. But missiles are smart enough to try and avoid friendly ships even with friendly fire on, so why would they detonate on a friendly ship they were trying not to hit? (most explosives are very stable and won't explode without a detonator)

I'm not opposed to doing this for mines (would they explode harmlessly, or bounce off?), but I don't think I want to do it for missiles. I don't buy the argument that missiles would be smart enough to not detonate when hitting a friendly ship, even if that's how it works in the real world, I don't think it's intuitive.

Dalas120 BUG: mines will not detonate if the ship that launched them was destroyed/turned to junk.

Yeah this has been on my list to fix for a while, but the fix requires a pretty significant code refactor, which I should definitely do at some point, but it hasn't been a high priority.

Dalas120 I don't think there's any way to make strategic vision really powerful in a tournament environment

I also, for the record, don't think it's worth balancing the game specifically for livestreamed tournaments.

Dalas120 I know that there are potential performance issues depending on how this is done

So I haven't actually tested this to make sure, but I'm pretty confident that anything other than circles is prohibitively bad for performance. (Well, axis-aligned rectangles would be fine, but super weird.) I would love to have cones of vision or even just multiple sight circles centered on control rooms & sensor arrays, but I haven't done that for performance reasons. It'd be too easy to tank performance by putting a couple dozen directional sensors on a ship. Even more than one circle of vision (as would be required if vision extended from each control room or sensor array) I'd be concerned about.

Dalas120 Decrease default control room sight radius (400 -> 200?)

In principal I like the idea of lowering normal sight range below max weapon range, though I am a bit worried about what this does to singleplayer. (In SP, the A.I.'s aggro range is simply its sensor range, which is nice and intuitive, but I don't think the aggro range should be lowered any more than it currently is. Probably not a big deal at the end of the day, but it's a minor downside.) I'm also not sure it's very interesting if all you need to do is build a single sensor array to fire at max range, I would prefer that to require a more active strategy, such as spotter ships or an active sensor ability (see below).

An alternative (though this obviously has many other implications) would be to increase the range of the long-range weapons past the current standard sight range, and then increase sensor array range even further.

Dalas120 Have minimap sensor "blips" show ship silhouette and name.

I definitely don't want to do this an SP, and ideally MP would be consistent with SP.

Also, the minimap itself isn't close to being large enough to show full silhouettes.

Here's an idea that I think I've mentioned before: What if sensor arrays had a Starcraft-style "scanner sweep" ability that would reveal a circular area for maybe 20-30 seconds, including anything in it that's cloaked (like mines)? Perhaps that could even be a directional cone, which if you can't use them too often might be okay for performance? Their regular sight range extension would probably be reduced or eliminated, and they probably wouldn't be able to reveal cloaked objects without using the scanner sweep. This would provide a stronger incentive to have multiple sensor arrays on a ship, so that you can use the scanner sweep more often.

Nordwolf

Walt I don't think I want to do it for missiles.

I think missiles are just used as an example of a weapon that tries to avoid friendly fire, without suggesting it would do the same.

Walt An alternative (though this obviously has many other implications) would be to increase the range of the long-range weapons past the current standard sight range, and then increase sensor array range even further.

Since I suggested it some time ago as well, I am all for this one, I generally believe that some weapon ranges (like EMP/HE or rails) should be limited by sensor range instead of their targeting range. Also I would propose to reintroduce momentum boosting with sensor arrays, perhaps with smaller radius than your current vision.

Dalas120 Instead of providing vision in a huge circle around the ship's center, sensors should provide stackable directional vision.

I don't really like them being directional, perhaps there can be an external directional antennae or some other sensor part that would do it, but not the current sensor array.

Additional suggestion: sensor array can have two ranges, one for actual vision and targeting, and another for silhouette vision, which is much larger.

Walt What if sensor arrays had a Starcraft-style "scanner sweep" ability that would reveal a circular area for maybe 20-30 seconds

What if instead of an ability, you had a way to regulate an arrays' radius, with vastly increased power consumption as you go higher? You can then increase energy storage capacity of an array, making it possible to ramp up the radius really high for a short period of time until the storage runs out, unless you have insane power supply in which case you can do it for longer. Alternatively they can work similarly to boost engines, with a "boost" mode that has really high power consumption, but I prefer the way with more control.

Dalas120

Walt I'm not opposed to doing this for mines, but I don't think I want to do it for missiles. I don't buy the argument that missiles would be smart enough to not detonate when hitting a friendly ship, even if that's how it works in the real world, I don't think it's intuitive.

Ok.

Walt So I haven't actually tested this to make sure, but I'm pretty confident that anything other than circles is prohibitively bad for performance. (Well, axis-aligned rectangles would be fine, but super weird.) I would love to have cones of vision or even just multiple sight circles centered on control rooms & sensor arrays, but I haven't done that for performance reasons. It'd be too easy to tank performance by putting a couple dozen directional sensors on a ship. Even more than one circle of vision (as would be required if vision extended from each control room or sensor array) I'd be concerned about.

Do multiple sight circles on one ship cause more problems than having multiple ships? The game doesn't seem to have much trouble with fighter swarms, despite each ship having it's own sight circle.

Are ovals also bad for performance? Maybe multiple sensors and control rooms could have their sight circles "averaged out" into a single large oval.

Walt I'm also not sure it's very interesting if all you need to do is build a single sensor array to fire at max range, I would prefer that to require a more active strategy, such as spotter ships or an active sensor ability (see below).

I was thinking each sensor array would only increase vision by a moderate amount in its targeted direction. So you'd still need several, especially if long-range weapons got longer range. And if you wanted 360 degree coverage (maybe for a rapidly-turning ion beam prism), you'd need a LOT of sensors.

Walt An alternative (though this obviously has many other implications) would be to increase the range of the long-range weapons past the current standard sight range, and then increase sensor array range even further.

Nordwolf Since I suggested it some time ago as well, so I am all for this one, I generally believe that some weapon ranges (like EMP/HE or rails) should be limited by sensor range instead of their targeting range.

I'm all for increasing the range of long range weapons even more (railguns in particular), but giving more than a couple of weapons >400 range (=control room vision) sounds concerning. And sensors are probably too niche if they're only useful alongside 1 or 2 specific weapons.

Walt Also, the minimap itself isn't close to being large enough to show full silhouettes.

Ah, sorry - I meant the regular game window, not the minimap.

Walt I definitely don't want to do this an SP, and ideally MP would be consistent with SP.

I'm not sure I understand why this would cause problems for SP? If control room sight ranges get reduced, I think it's good for red blips to show silhouettes (or at least remember silhouettes) so that players don't get disoriented.

Walt Here's an idea that I think I've mentioned before: What if sensor arrays had a Starcraft-style "scanner sweep" ability that would reveal a circular area for maybe 20-30 seconds, including anything in it that's cloaked (like mines)? Perhaps that could even be a directional cone, which if you can't use them too often might be okay for performance? Their regular sight range extension would probably be reduced or eliminated, and they probably wouldn't be able to reveal cloaked objects without using the scanner sweep. This would provide a stronger incentive to have multiple sensor arrays on a ship, so that you can use the scanner sweep more often.

This sounds reasonable to me, though I'm not sure if I prefer it over 100% uptime directional sensors. Scanner sweep means that long range weapons can't fire at long range without a player actively microing the scanner sweep, and given how chaotic domination already is it might not make sense to give players even more things to manage. Plus enemies can just fly out of the scanner sweep zone and become untargetable, even if they're still within range.

Another concern is that it deemphasizes internal design if scanner sweeps can be cast anywhere, regardless of where the sensor is placed on the ship. Though internal design isn't particularly exciting with 100% uptime directional sensors either - just put the sensor as close to the enemy as you can.

Also, if the scanner sweep "cooldown" is based on power (like shields, boost thrusters, and basically every part), then you get a shorter cooldown with a couple of sensors surrounded by a whole bunch of reactors rather than many sensors. Maybe all sensors are activated together for each scanner sweep, and number of sensors determines the size of the scanned area?

On the other hand, I think scanner sweep is a good way to make it clear for the player which parts of their vision can detect cloaked mines and which can't, which is something that's trickier with directional sensors. And it's also very simple for players to understand. So overall I'm not sure.

Nordwolf Additional suggestion: sensor array can have two ranges, one for actual vision and targeting, and another for silhouette vision, which is much larger.

I thought about this, but I feel like it's needlessly complex and also requires a separate radar overlay so players can see how far their radar extends. I'd personally prefer to just have all silhouettes visible, or no silhouettes visible.

Dalas120

Walt It's necessary to create an element of risk and surprise. Right now, once you get close enough to see a ship, you've almost certainly aggro'd it, whereas if you could see what type of enemy it is, you could just not engage anything you're not sure you can take on.

I suppose, but buying a single sensor for $20k means you'll always see an enemy before they aggro (plus there's always save scumming) - and none of this even matters unless you're both weaker and slower. When the game gets a true campaign, I assume that enemies will be mission-related or smart enough for this to not matter anyway.

One idea - what if the fog of war option dealt with silhouettes, not actual sight radius? So weapons are still limited to their sensor range whether fog is on or off, but if fog is off players can see silhouettes on all enemies. That would explain differences between singleplayer and multiplayer.

If there's no clear "good option" for sensors/sight range, it can always be left as-is for now. I don't think that sensors are absolutely necessary to counter cloaked mines.

Walt Increasing shrapnel range probably also means they need more shrapnel (maybe shrapnel that explodes into more shrapnel after a certain range?)

Sounds fine, as long as the total damage is the same both before and after the shrapnel splits. Otherwise you could reduce damage by getting close to the mine, which seems backwards.

Walt I'm a little worried that mines are too small to feel like they pack that kind of firepower and might need to be made bigger, which I'm not necessarily opposed to (aside from the work required to redo the art), but that'd also mean reducing the number that can fit in a launcher from 6 to 1-2.

Between the spinny light and the red circle detonation mines have very showy visuals, which I think makes it less strange if a physical mine itself is small. I think it's good if mine launchers and especially storage could still fit 6 mines, because storage definitely doesn't need a nerf.

Walt

Dalas120 Does multiple sight circles on one ship cause more problems than having multiple ships? The game doesn't seem to have much trouble with fighter swarms, despite each ship having it's own sight circle.

No it doesn't matter. The main problem is it makes the worst-case scenario dramatically worse (imagine a dozen ships each with 50 sensor arrays, that's 600 sight circles).

Dalas120 I'm not sure I understand why this would cause problems for SP? If control room sight ranges get reduced, I think it's good for red blips to show silhouettes (or at least remember silhouettes) so that players don't get disoriented.

It's necessary to create an element of risk and surprise. Right now, once you get close enough to see a ship, you've almost certainly aggro'd it, whereas if you could see what type of enemy it is, you could just not engage anything you're not sure you can take on.

Remembering silhouettes once an enemy is seen might be a good compromise? Though I worry that could be a bit confusing that some ships have silhouettes and some don't.

Dalas120 Another concern is that it deemphasizes internal design if scanner sweeps can be cast anywhere

I was thinking there would be a maximum range from the sensor array, maybe even not all that far.

Dalas120 Also, if the scanner sweep "cooldown" is based on power (like shields, boost thrusters, and basically every part), then you get a shorter cooldown with a couple of sensors surrounded by a whole bunch of reactors rather than many sensors.

The other advantage multiple sensors would give you is that you could have multiple simultaneous scanner sweeps. (Not sure you useful that is in practice though. Maybe as enemies move around?)

Dalas120 Maybe all sensors are activated together for each scanner sweep, and number of sensors determines the size of the scanned area?

Eh, maybe? It seems kind of arbitrary to force sensors to combine, that doesn't make a lot of lore-sense to me.

Walt

Dalas120 One idea - what if the fog of war option dealt with silhouettes, not actual sight radius? So weapons are still limited to their sensor range whether fog is on or off, but if fog is off players can see silhouettes on all enemies. That would explain differences between singleplayer and multiplayer.

If weapons are limited to sensor range, then I'm not even sure turning off FoW should be an option, given that it would become a pretty integral mechanic.

But yeah, maybe an option to turn on silhouettes would be good to have? (Maybe three options: Silhouettes, blips, and none.)