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New autobattle

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morse:
Hi. This is the thread about my new autobattle proposal (http://ufoai.org/wiki/index.php/Proposals/New_autobattle)
For those of you who do not know, I'll describe how autobattle works right now: two teams stand against each other and fire at each other in turn, with the probability to hit calculated entirely from magic numbers and dice rolls. By saving just before the battle and reloading several times, you can as well win without a single casualty, or totally loose.
The system that I propose is of course not perfect, moreover, I myself already found a big flaw in it, which needs a bit of thinking. But I think that it's still better than what we have now in every way possible. For some reason the idea was fiercely rejected, with the reasons, which will much more apply to the current system than to the proposed.
Anyway, I was looking at the code, and I think I'm ready to do my bit in a noble task of making UFOAI better. The only question remains: how do you like the autobattle to be improved? I do not want to spent my time writing the code which won't be accepted, so we need to think of a system which will satisfy everyone. Or do you, seriously, think that what you have now is the best simulation possible?

ShipIt:

--- Quote from: morse on June 01, 2012, 04:33:57 pm ---Or do you, seriously, think that what you have now is the best simulation possible?

--- End quote ---

No.

Salvo:
Things that should be taken into account:

For Phalanx:
- The number of Phalanx soldiers involved
- Soldiers' average or combined rank, because rank reflects soldier's overall skill level. Perhaps grant bigger bonuses for the top three ranks.
- Soldier equipment: armor and weapon on hand.
- This calls for numerical values to be set for each weapon and armor to reflect their general effectiveness on the battlefield. This number shouldn't be a static number but more like 1-3 for a 7.62mm pistol and 4-6 for an Assault Rifle, and maybe 1-10 for a Laser Rifle. And so on.
- Check for the number of Medkits on the team. The more Medkits, the less wounds after the battle, up to a point.
- Optionally check for IR goggles if it's night. Lack of worn IR goggles during nighttime should be considered a penalty.
- Optionally check for other equipment in inventory, specifically hand grenades and extra magazines for the weapon. Ideally there should be a low probability that some of this stuff is consumed during autobattles, but if an item IS consumed, it should give a bonus to the outcome, i.e. less wounds.


For Aliens:
- The number of Aliens involved
- Alien types: Ortnoks are more deadly than Tamans. The lethality order needs to be figured out.
- Aliens get an advantage if a battle involves Aliens which autopsies are yet to be conducted by Phalanx, or alternatively, Phalanx gains bonuses after autopsies.
- Alien weaponry autobattle values need to be decided as well.


The autobattle mechanics:
- Individual soldiers and aliens are sorted into two lists. Aliens on one list and Phalanx soldiers on the other. Combatants are placed in random order in their respective lists.
- The starting side is selected randomly.
- Combatants shoot in turns, and in order, starting from the top of the list.
- For each soldier and alien there is a base 5% chance that he's able to interrupt on opponent's turn, aiming and firing at a random opponent. For Phalanx soldiers, this chance goes up with rank. For Aliens... I don't know. Shots are fired simultaneously. If the last two combatants kill off each other this way, the battle is considered a defeat.
- The side that gets to shoot at any time (with the exception of the first turn) is determined by probability, and the probability is determined by the number of combatants on each side. The larger the team, the larger the probability. This probability changes throughout the battle as combatants get killed.
- Higher soldier rank increases the chance to hit an alien, and the chance to NOT get hit by an alien (increased evasion and increased damage reduction), on top of the increased chance to interrupt (i.e. fire back) as described above.
- Each Medkit that a surviving Phalanx soldier carries has a 20% chance of reviving a dead Phalanx soldier, healing up to 20% of max health. Each Medkit also has a 20% chance of healing 40% of any wounded soldier's maximum health instantly after battle.
- Optionally involve the Mind stat of each individual surviving soldier carrying a Medkit to determine the healing chance or the amount of hit points healed.
- A 5% chance exists on each turn that a soldier or an alien uses a grenade from his inventory on his turn, wounding 0-3 opponents. If interrupt and grenade chance happen at the same time, one is selected randomly, in order to prevent both from activating.
- Phalanx soldiers gain double critical chance AND damage bonus if an autopsy has been conducted on the target alien's race. (note: implement critical hits)


One Colonel rank soldier in Nano armor, armed with a Heavy Laser should be able to wipe out a team of 5 unarmored Tamans all armed with Plasma Pistols, while sustaining only minimal damage.
One armored Ortnok, armed with a Plasma Rifle, should be able to wipe out 5-8 Phalanx Rookies (out of a team of 8 ), assuming their weapons aren't very advanced.


The big idea is that the Aliens have initially way more force and firepower on their side simply due to the deadlier weapons and the element of surprise, by which I mean that the Aliens know human physiology and capabilities but the Phalanx doesn't know anything about any of the Alien species. Until autopsies have been conducted, that is. Over time Phalanx gains bonuses on their side via research, better weaponry and battle experience (soldier ranks). This would mean that in the early stages the player is practically forced to manually handle the tactical combat, while in the late stages of the game, the player would have the best team with best weapons, and he's then able to autoresolve even the largest battles successfully, with minimal casualties (severe wounds at most but no soldier deaths).


More work needs to be done so that the player can make an educated guess if it's worth it to risk autobattle. Currently it's impossible to check the crashed UFO type, unless the player memorized it earlier. The exact number and composition of the UFO troops should be made visible to the player at some point as well, in my opinion.




Just my 2 cents...

TrashMan:
Frankly, I'd simulate the battle with both sides starting at large distance and moving closer while shooting.

2 (+-1) turns of long-range combat
2 (+-1) turns of mid-range combat
2 (+-1) turns of close-range combat

The number of each is a bit randomized...or could depends on the type of map. Large open maps could trigger more long-range turns, etc..

Next, during each turn aliens and soldiers take shots at eachother, with each soldier per side having a 25% chance to be behind cover (can't be shot at) and 25% chance to not have a LoS (can't shoot) every turn.

H-Hour:
Morse: I have two top priorities in any ideal autoresolve system. If you can find good, simple mechanisms for addressing these priorities I'd be more inclined to support your proposal.

First, it should seek to mimic the game mechanisms and principles which lead to success in the battlescape. This is an extraordinarily difficult task and I don't have a good idea how to do this. But I feel that all attempts to model weapon effectiveness by giving each weapon a rating, measuring the number of shots made/available, or gauging soldier effectiveness through skills/abilities/rank/kills will fall short.

A successful tactical battlescape mission is all about having the proper mixture of weapon capabilities in your team and learning how to deploy these differently-capable soldiers to support one another. Individualizing weapons, soldiers or soldier performance (shots/kills/rank) undermines this aspect of the gameplay, as I would be more inclined to simply equip weapons with high ratings. But a rocket launcher is a bad weapon to clear a building.

Your general approach of using past success and failure to model automission outcomes has some potential for addressing this problem, but it really risks introducting autoresolve as a macro-strategic gameplay mechanism: the player will learn it is in his interest to play easy missions and autoresolve difficult missions.

This intrudes on my second major priority: to ensure that the game provides consistent results that do not unbalance the gameplay. This will never be completely avoided. Any automated outcomes in the game will be exploitable by players that wish to save and reload until they get a good outcome. I'm not worried about this. Our game is just the type of game to attract save-loaders and that's fine. But what I want to avoid is introducing a mechanic that entices the player to use autoresolve to his advantage. This is also a very difficult problem and I don't have good answers for it.

But if you want your autoresolve mechanism to be considered more carefully, I would suggest trying to think about how you can address these critical issues in a simple mechanic that is understandable to those who won't be coding it.

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