Left / Right Combat

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2784 days, 16 hours, 12 minutes ago

Left / Right Combat

Hi guys, I was just wondering if the left-right combat advantages/disadvantages are still up to date. There are several reasons why this should be eliminated:

1. the system is complex and hard to understand for every newbie here on .nu. It is not explained in the game and you have to analyse i.e. Donovans guides to understand it.

2. the advantages for example at a carrier fight are pretty harsh. I lost a Golem to a Biocide (not even hull damage) when fighting from the right and some turns later my Automa annihilated a Biocide even though it has quite fewer beams and bays. The outcome of the fight depends heavily on the site you are fighting.

3. As a result of 2., it is completely necessary that you fight from the left (if Carrier vs Carrier). In order to achieve that, you need a non-numerical FC, no PE and no Kill Mission. This leads to absurd situations.. in my game of Robot vs Borg, there are several fleets on the same planets but they are not fighting. Because nobody wants to fight on the right side as this would mean certain annihilation. Is there any reason we still keep this artifact of ancient times in the game?

Best,

Rudel

2784 days, 15 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

Good point!

IMHO these battle mechanics don't really make the game more interesting - they just make it harder to understand.
I doubt most newbies even know about the left/right side issue and of course they will be frustrated sooner or later if the lose a heavy carrier against a not so heavy carrier.

I wouldn't see a disadvantage if it doesn't matter from which side you're fighting in future Planets.NU versions. In fact it would be an improvement.

2784 days, 11 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

IMO the left/right side behaviour is well documented and brings more strategy to the game.

The game would be boring if not for the crazy surprises involved in carrier vs carrier battles!

2784 days, 10 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

The E-S bonus was supposed to be an element of the game mechanics and that has been eliminated because it was deemed too much of a penalty to the non-carrier races (advantage to the carrier races). With the elimination of the E-S bonus I see no reason why the left/right "rules" need to remain in effect. At least with the E-S bonus in carrier vs carrier, you would be disadvantaged against a carrier with a higher engine (ie. a carrier that attacked your planet as opposed to your carrier is just sitting there with tech-1 engines).

2784 days, 8 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

I too find the left/right bonus annoying to say the least. Usually I'm against changing the rules, but really... this one sucks :o)

1) It messes with battle-order (being able to control battle order of your fleets is important, but the penalty for fighting on the wrong side is harsh).

2) It makes absolutely no sense... why does it even exist?

3) The effect of being on the right side is battle-deciding. It would be fine if it gave a small advantage, but it does not. It gives a major advantage. Why build huge carriers with high-tech beams and great engines, if a medium sized carrier is all you need, as long as it fights on the right side in the VCR?

Regards

2784 days, 6 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

This is one original bug/flaw/feature that should be fixed.
The Left side advantage is due to a flaw in the original 3.0 VCR that was never fixed.

There should be random combat variance as was intended. An Instrumentality should have a
small chance of beating a Gorbie but it shouldn't be improved by one side of the combat engine.

2783 days, 15 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

I agree and vote for removing the differences of left and right side of the combat. It makes things just easier for everybody.

Although the bonus mass for ships on the right side was sometimes helpful (e.g. an Iron Lady fighting from the right resists being destroyed much longer).

Btw, the randomness in combat should be lowered as well in my opinion. E.g. an Instrumentality should never win versus a Gorbie. Or a Biocide should never be able to destroy two Virgos in a row. That's just ridiculous and frustrating.

2783 days, 12 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

I'd like to have strategically advantages, but not this battle order eliminating left-side right-side thing. I'm with Rudel: ridiculously situations where no fighter race wants to start a battle and just waits till being attacked by a opponent who stupidly set PO or PE.

Besides, imho the advantage of fighting from the left side is too big.

2781 days, 0 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

Agreed, this one can go away, so I don't have to try to remember which is which and all that crap.

Let the better ship win!! most of the time at least :)

2779 days, 10 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

I happen to like the current pros and cons for each side.

For the record - completed games with Federation (2nd place), Colonials (2nd place), and Empire (2nd place). Current games Fascist (137 turns, currently 1st place), Birds (61 turns, currently 2nd) and Federation (63 turns, currently 1st). So, as both a carrier player and a torp player, I like the left side / right side advantages / disadvantages.

2779 days, 10 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

So have you fight against another carrier race when playing one? Where both players know that they need to get on the left side?

And it still is an issue that it's explained nowhere and gives new players a significant disadvantage.

At least we need to lower the advantages/disadvantages in my oppinion. Giving you a slight advantage, now a decisive one.

2779 days, 9 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

I think the left/right differences are interesting because they create an element of unpredictability. Unfortunately, since experienced players can manipulate it to gain an advantage, it has turned into an annoying way to take advantage of new players.

What is the downside to making side random?

2779 days, 9 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

.. and weaken the effects of the advantages... ;)

2779 days, 9 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

Two races in particular I feel get the best benefit out of left side/right side.

1) Rebels - they can just ground attack your planets, if you don't fight their rushes from the right, you basically watch your planets get burned one by one. Ergo, Rebels generally always fight from the left.

2) Privateers - Now I like playing Privs, but left side/right side is very much in their favour. I never set a PE with privs, so my stolen carriers either always fight from the left or if the opponent doesn't set PE then I rob/steal their ships.

I would argue that Rebels/Privs are two of the strongest races to play, do they really need the advantages listed above?

2779 days, 9 hours, 13 minutes ago

richard hendricks

RE: Left / Right Combat

Really, the same argument of "it brings more strategy" can be brought against any addition or change to the game.

Ship limit? Adds more strategy
Ship/starbase ID determines order of events (ie, low ID for laying/sweeping, etc)? Adds more strategy (Imagine the uproar if all events decided by ID # were determined in a random order, ie ID for the ship/starbase is now irrelevant)
Build queue? Adds more strategy
Etc.

All of these do add more strategy, but in arbitrary and non-obvious ways, and in ways that violate the spirit of the game. It's about races building ships and attacking one another, not a game about finagling the ship limit by building worthless hulls.

In my opinion, the left/right combat is more of an exploit that a feature. Tim tried to resolve it by randomly adding 360kt to the right side, which is at best a band-aid.

2779 days, 6 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

I agree with everyone else. the left/right advantage/disadvantage is simply too great if empires are unwilling to fight each other. i like the idea of the defending side having an advantage, but it should be the difference of, for example, if the same ship fought itself, the defender would win more often. it should never make a far weaker ship win over the stronger one.

I also agree that knowing this kind of information is too great an advantage for players who are willing to use it. I'm in a game with 6 friends and they all want to play an "economy, war and diplomacy" type game, not a "who can read and understand the bugs and unmarked advantages better" type game.

2779 days, 6 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

With regards to left / right bonuses not being well documented on this site... nether is combat in general. Experienced players who have done research on a game will always have an advantage over new players that haven't done that research, regardless of the game being played.

left / right bonuses allow for some tactical flexibility on the player's part, and introduce a chance of randomness. Or would you rather nothing be able to ever beat a Gorbie or a Biocide accept another Gorbie or Biocide? (Even with the left / right settings, a gorbie or biocide is likely to beat any other carrier... all it does is give the other carriers a chance against them)

2779 days, 5 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

the tactics of fighting a large carrier should be controlling the fight order to knock out shields with a torpedo ship and finish with a carrier of your own. I understand that controlling the fight order is done in the same manner as left/right battle side, (friendly code,) but a small ship should not have an equal chance to defeat a large one based on who chooses to initiate and at the direct cost of losing control of the battle order.

most of our problem with this is that it was clearly unintended. he tried to fix it and failed. if we have access to better programs who can fix the mistake we should take advantage of that, especially if it improves the game.

as my roommate says, "yes. i would rather a gorbie or biocide never lose to a smaller ship. they are the biggest ships in the game. there is always a biggest and best in any game. they cost more to build, they cost more to move, and they still lose when fighting more than one ship of similar strength."

2779 days, 5 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

If your roommate had his way then, Star Wars and Star Trek would both have made bad movies when they met up with those enemies.

2779 days, 5 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

my roommate doesn't have a lot of tact. his response is, "would you prefer a game in which a gorbie is defeated by 12 fighters and a falcon? that's a movie, this is a war sim. don't be ridiculous."

:D cleaning my house and discussing planets is a great morning.

2779 days, 4 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

One has to remember, those rebel fighters had shields, the gorbies one's did not. And since they also had their own fuel tanks they didn't have to return to their "Rush" in order to continue the fight ;)

2779 days, 4 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

Pulling some Rush vs Big Carrier stats from The Rebels Handbook:

Biocide : Rush on left wins 50%
Rush on right wins 10%

Gorbie : Rush on left wins 50%
Rush on right wins 10%

Golem : Rush on left wins 60%
Rush on right wins 20%

Virgo : Rush on left wins 75%
Rush on right wins 50%

We can see that fighting from left is essential for Rebel success. In order to understand better what the "Left / Right Combat" means for other carrier races we would need some more stats.

Does someone have this info available in a handy manner?

2779 days, 1 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

Softmonk, your roomate has good reason to feel that way. Just remember that the VCR program is just a graphical representation of simple calculations. It does not have the ability to render plot, characters or amazing shots. If you remove the side differences, you remove any possibility of approximating those things along with it.

Anyway, there were calamari cruisers (Rushes) and other vessels taking on the death star while the fighters were busy! It was not a few lone fighters sneaking in.

2779 days, 0 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

so we are in agreement that the VCR is "a graphical representation of calculations." and we are in agreement that in a movie there were multiple ships required to take down a gorbie.

But you believe we should include a random chance that "plot" occurs and a weaker side can suddenly win. you want to keep the VCR how it is, but randomize the sides so that there is a %50 chance of this? (if i'm wrong please write back and correct me.)

You seem to agree with everyone that tactics are interfered with, not enhanced; but you disagree on how to implement the change. like you, i'm not a fan of changing game balance. the instrumentality is one of the robots great advantages. so maybe you are right. your way also might be easier on the programmers. maybe we should write 2 suggestions and see which one gets more votes?

or you could try to convince me that you are right! :)

2779 days, 0 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

For those interested, this page has good info on how to get to the side of the VCR you want to be on, as well as how you might choose that.

http://vgaplanets.org/index.php/VCR_Side_Advantage

2778 days, 21 hours, 34 minutes ago

richard hendricks

RE: Left / Right Combat

Nobody wants to remove randomness and strategy from the game. We just want to make sure that randomness and strategy is sensible and fair.

1/3 of torpedoes miss, but you can get 10 hits or misses in a row

The left/right disparity is like teaching someone all the rules of chess, except for the one on promoting pawns when they reach the other side. Or perhaps a better analogy might be capturing someone by en passant, a rarely used rule that most people don't use or understand.

One could argue the same for beam weapon failures as well.

2777 days, 23 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

You know this game is hard enough for new people to pick up, it would be nice if they didn't have to deal with this.

Hell most new players can come to grips with the intricacies of the host order and all that, and still have no clue that the left / right thing exists.

And then trying to explain it to someone... like.. huh?.. whoa?!

2777 days, 22 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

That's fine except they don't have to deal with it. Just set your FC and battle away, it's not like it can make a freighter defeat a Gorbie or something. ;-)

There's always SOMETHING more to this game for newbies. If it's not left/right then it's warp wells. Or cloaked intercept. Or webmine drain. Or minefield FCs. Or... you get my point. It's just one more aspect of the game that makes the difference between a good player and an expert player, but doesn't really affect the novice players that much.

2777 days, 22 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

Sure but most of those other things make sense... warp wells, that's pretty easy, cloaked intercept, a tad odd, but not really, just the name more than anything, but it makes sense, but left vs right in certain conditions..etc... etc... eh, that's just stupid on all accounts.

And I'm a staunch defender for the game as it was in its original form, but this particular nuance needs to go.

2777 days, 20 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

left vs right only comes into effect in 2 situations :

carrier vs torp - if torp is on right, has a chance to fight more effectively

carrier vs carrier - gives the carrier on the left better dogfighting. That's (normally) not going to make up for drastically fewer bays, beams, or fighters, but will allow nominally equal ships (such as any of the tech 10 carriers) to have a better chance at victory. Yes, flukes will occur (such as my Virgo taking out 2 biocides in one turn... course, the virgo was useless afterwards with ~90 damage IIRC). But you know what? These sort of flukes have occurred in real life as well. And the advantage of having your ships fight from the correct side? History is full of examples of combat were one side or the other refused to engage unless they thought they were in the better position (and more then a few where said position determined the battle). This is nothing more then that.

2777 days, 19 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

i agree completely, chaos. I ran some tests myself and the difference really isn't large enough to warrant a change to the VCR. the problem is that you have to sacrifice all other tactical control to gain that advantage. if it were merely aggression that controlled the side it would be fine. the issue is that you can no longer control battle order, or "communicate with your troops" by choosing the defensive option.

my opinion also shouldn't count too much, as i've never played a fighter race, and rarely has left/right even mattered for me.

2777 days, 16 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

Chaos, I think it's pretty funny that we disagree over every aspect that was discussed here on this forum. But I still think this one here needs to change.

1. You cannot compare real-life combat to Planets. In a "real" battle, there are thousands of units fighting. If someone gets a lucky shot, this doesn't matter in the overall picture. In planets, victory most of the times depends on 2,3, sometimes even one ship. A "lucky shot" is far more decisive here than in real battles. I agree that there needs to be some kind of random number generators as we do not want a 2nd game of chess here.

But the randomness should only give you slight advantages/disadvantages and not decide the course of the game. A freighter will never beat a Gorbie, that's right. But an Instrumentality will if fighting from the left, even though it costs so much less. In my oppinion that is not a fun element, but a frustrating one.

2. I agree that there need to be aspects of the game where a very good player has advantages of new players. This is mandatory to make the game fun. But I do not think that using the FC in some unexplained and completely counter-intuitive way is the right way to go. I started here on .nu with 5 friends who never player planets before. And believe me, they had other issues than dealing with the right side of combat.

This would be okay if the outcome would not depend so heavily on the right side. Giving it a small advantage would be fine, but not so gamebreaking. And no, I think that 1 Bio shouldn't beat 2 Virgos in a row just because he is fighting from the left.

3. Finally, there is still the issue with Carrier VS Carrier and no one wants to set PE or Kill. Because you will lose if you set one of them. I think that all agree that this is pretty stupid.

2777 days, 15 hours, 11 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: Left / Right Combat

I have the impression that the outcome of carrier battles is more random in Nuniverse than in TimHost. I may remember wrong as my TimHost experience was made long ago. Anyway, I like a little bit of randomness but the actual level in carrier fights is too high for a strategy game. If I could I'd vote for reducing it.
For example: A Rush surviving a battle with a Biocide with only 30% damage is ok in rare occasions but a Rush defeating two Biocides in a row is not.

2777 days, 12 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

Rudel -

"In a "real" battle, there are thousands of units fighting. If someone gets a lucky shot, this doesn't matter in the overall picture."

HMS Hood. 1 single lucky shot decided that battle.

"A freighter will never beat a Gorbie, that's right. But an Instrumentality will if fighting from the left, even though it costs so much less."

An Instrumentality *may* beat a Gorbie when fighting from the left, but it's not a sure thing. You want it to be that the Gorbie would win that fight 100 % of the time... and that would be boring. Think of the Battle of Midway - on paper, the IJN should have won that fight. But a quirk in timing (the USN fighting from the left in planets terms) determined the entire battle.

"Finally, there is still the issue with Carrier VS Carrier and no one wants to set PE or Kill."

If your opponenet is so insistant on not initiating combat unless the conditions are favorable to him, he's just ceeded the inititive to you. Tow his fleet appart and deal with it individually. Ignore fleet and start hammering his worlds. He's orbiting his worlds so you can't attack them? Bring in freighters filled with clans and start dropping... tow the ships off the planet and attack it. Sooner or later, he will ether have to initiate combat (now under your terms) or he looses the game. This isn't the only wargame I play, and in every single one, one thing remains - if you won't take some risks and attack just because you refuse to fight under anything but perfect conditions, you have already lost the game.

2767 days, 3 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Left / Right Combat

Actually I'm a quite newbie player but agree with initail rudel post.

In my opinion Left/right Combat bonus should be eliminated or at least heavily reduced.