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[Suggestion] Make fleet structure & warfare work as it is actually designed
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L4ST
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#1 - 2012-09-16 14:05:42 UTC  |  Edited by: L4ST
o/ hi folks


So well, what do we see in big fleets at the moment? Roughly - 40 identical Logis, 180 idetical DPS ships, and some tackle/scouts.

What are squads and wings for at the moment? Nothing - well except that theres positions to fill.


What's the idea?
Make squads and wings actually do something. Accomplished by:

a) Balance part
could look something like:
(the values are just to show the idea, dont take these to evaluate the idea please; aswell as the actual way of balancing might not be the best one. If you got better ideas, go post!)
- Damage malus for homogen fleets. 30 Maelstroms? Fine. 100 Maelstroms? -30% Damage. The less heterogen the fleet the more malus
- Speed bonus for heterogen fleets. 10 different shiptypes? meh. 20+ Different shiptypes? 3% bonus for agility \o/

b) Fleet usability part
The first part would make fleet compositions much more complex and even more ppl would be scared off commanding it. So what would we need? My idea would cover:
- Add a lot of usability to squad and wing commanding (see more information your squad sees, the scout squad would be a good example here. The fleet commander wouldn't see what they see but the squad commander could get a "squad scanner summary" to see the information gathered by his squad members, showing what they scanned where with what angles/range)
- Make the actual fleetcommander "do" less stuff and more gather informations and really just coordinate wings/squads

One might add more or change the stuff I mentioned in (a) and (b), but I guess you get the idea.

What's the advantage?
This way I imagine, and thats the ultimate goal of this idea, fleets will hold for example a bomber squad, a long range DPS wing, shortrange DPS squads, a Logi and EWAR wing, and "small ships" squads.
- More diversity and chance to be and feel useful for fleet members. There might be a spot for any combat profession in large fleets.
- More fleet commanders. Those guys, paired with corporation and alliance leadership are the backbone of EVE for a large part of the community. Make commanding easy (squad) and moderately different (wing) on a lower level than acutally commanding a whole fleet and people will "grow" into a fleet commanding role.
- More actual fights instead of the often critizised Blobwar. "Oh my god they warped in their huge long range DPS wing at optimal range, they will have wiped out 70% of the enemy fleet in less than 2 minutes but wait, whats that? A bomber wing warps in, dropping heavy damage on the attacker, followed by a close range warpin by 2 short range DPS squads, ..." could ACTUALLY happen. It's happening right now, but only if both parties have several fleets on field, so its not like people wouldnt do that
- Way more epicness compared to "warp, drop, warp, watch killmails" for bombers or "primary X, secondary Y, tertiary Z, ..." for DPS fleets.
- Even performance improvements (graphical) as two opposing fleets will rarely be on one grid as a whole.
- Due to the diversity in fleet compositions I imagine more fights being taken, as there are several damage types and counters in one fleet, and if the fleet commander thinks hes got a great wing commander above 5 squads who could counter an important part of the enemy fleet if they do good as usual he might take a fight you normally wouldnt.



I cannot stress enough how important it is to make squad and wing commanding easier to do and to access before making it sort of mandatory.


Comments?
Mars Theran
Foreign Interloper
#2 - 2012-09-16 18:23:40 UTC
Just quickly,

The 30% damage penalty is extreme and not needed anyway. Real fleets often project damage using similar ships and weapons, and historically, the cheapest group of ships is the one that is all essentially the same. Generally, that is the most effective group too.

When you get a heterogeneous fleet together, you're usually looking at a disorganized group or a group with limited organization, like revolutionaries or an armed uprising. Not in small groups perhaps, but in large ones anyway. This group proves less effective, not just for their disorganization, but for the limited and variable state of their arms and armor, and the lack of unity bred by their differences.

Of course, if you're looking at a large number of very angry, tough people, they might beat you down anyway, and have done so in history.

Next up, is the Fleet dispersion. Command Separation at a ship level is usually fine, but having multiple breaks in Command in a single mobile Fleet is likely to end poorly. A Captain may make his own decision in battle and control his ship based on those decisions, but one person should control the fleet.

On the other hand, you may have additional Fleets, more specialized and intended for specific roles, answerable to the Fleet Commander of the primary Fleet, but they usually join the main fleet when they join the battle.

I've only been in a large Fleet on SiSi, and I don't think it was very representative of what happens in game on TQ. In that case, I think it was pretty much everybody on everybody, and nobody was particularly effective. Also, lots of lag, (this was some time ago), and not much fun.

My experience in smaller scale engagements, is that there isn't much time to relay commands and have multiple leaders telling people what to do. This is why we end up with Primary and Secondary targets and everyone just making a call between the two based on their ship and role.

This is almost laughable for large fleets, to consider that there might be only 3 targets for a Fleet of a couple thousand at any given time.

Also, someone grows into a FC role or just fits it, but not based on a few tools at their disposal provided by the game. A lot of FCs aren't good at it and just yell primary, many are panicky, and some are drunk or something. There are very few good FCs, but you'll recognize them when you work with them, and you don't question them.

Not until after anyway. And of course, that's another thing that makes a Fleet good or bad, effective or a stupid mess; the ability of members to follow orders, or at least not question them until after. Provided that this communication occurs effectively, the fleet may get better, and one person or another might learn something.

Bottom line, Comms either become one chain of command once battle joins, or they break and each FC does what he thinks is best once battle is joined. In case of needed info, a Fleet member may monitor multiple channels from outside of the battle and update as needed with relevant information.

This would be a Comms Officer, and you might have one per fleet, or one for everything. Depends on the scale of your conflict I guess. In this case I'm referring to Fleets when actually, it may be wings and squads, but it actually may--in fact--be Fleets.

Squads are small, but they require as much skill to maneuver and command as large fleets do in many cases. This, provided it's done right.

So much for quickly. Maybe I'll break it down and try to summarize later. Lol ..probably not. Smile
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Mars Theran
Foreign Interloper
#3 - 2012-09-16 19:10:42 UTC
Some people may agree or disagree with all of what I said above or parts of it. I was pretty much just talking and I'm not sure I can effectively communicate the needs of everyone out there from my limited perspective and experience.

I think the largest Fleet I've been in was 30 or so, and that was an effective one, but it was also a Blob compared to the opponents we faced. The FC was good as far as basic control and coordination goes, but he cursed constantly and the effectiveness was probably more due to limited targets than actual skill on his part.

The best Fleet I have ever been in was only a 5-7 man gang, and while we didn't get any kills, it was fun and we all made it back to our respective stations without any losses eventually. I was stuck in a Nullsec station for a bit, but found my way back after awhile.

The second best was a larger gang, where we actually worked with another gang of about the same size who shared similar space. We got kills, but not many, and only lost one scout ship iirc. Proved fairly effective, but we had a bit of overkill on our side, for all that it was a rather lengthy engagement and more chasing was done than actual fighting.

Everything else has been in between.

I think the best tools that could be introduced, would be those that improve communications between fleets and within them, or changes to Fleet structure and numbers available within the various components of that structure. Even the ability to link separate Fleets in Comms and within a hierarchy would be helpful.

For example, you could have the ability to build 3-4 separate Fleets, then link them all under one, while maintaining their individual hierarchies. Each Fleet would retain its FC, but each FC would have a channel that was shared with other Fleets on the command level.

This would allow the Primary Fleet Commander, (we'll call him the big boss), to issue basic orders to each FC, which that FC could then use to direct his fleet. This could be a priority channel that overrides other communications. Of course, it is probably better if it is not voice, and is separated from stand voice channels.

It could also work within a fleets hierarchy. An idea would be for a special command indicator to represent the priority and origin to be attached to a basic command like we already use. Target for example, which places a indicator over s hip in overview, could have a gold command insignia attached to let you know your FC issued it. Gold and Red would be the Big Boss, Blue and Silver would be wing commander, and Silver Squad Commander, or something.

Each Command of that sort would only be shown to members of the Fleet or Sub-group within that fleet to which it was issued. Choice to override that is up to the leaders within the fleet individually. A Titan could be your primary target and you would be aware of it as it would be visible and obvious on your overview, but you may have a secondary or even tertiary target issued by subsequent commanders within the fleet hierarchy that you prioritize based on your agreed chain of command.

Even with all these tools, communication is essential, and establishing a chain of command and divisions within it is what determines a fleets effectiveness. This has to be done before hand, and works better with practice. Each member of a chain of command has to trust the decisions of the others and rely on them. Establishing roles for each group in that command is the only way to ensure that everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

Tools can only assist in the process and make communication easier.
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L4ST
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#4 - 2012-09-17 10:20:17 UTC  |  Edited by: L4ST
you are pretty much underlining my idea.

As you were part of a fleet of ~30 pilots you know where the fun is. Thats a genious size of a fleet, powerful already but not yet chaotic if not homogen.

And thats what you mentioned too - diversity brings chaos. The idea covers: Handling this chaos should be the big challenge for a fleetcommander, while others worry about other, more detailled stuff. Chaos is GOOD, there are way too few really challenged persons in a large fleet at the moment. Basically the FC is the only one who really is challenged, some others can optionally be challenged if they chose to, but the biggest part of the fleet needs left mouse button and 3 keys, where an action frequency of 5 seconds is the most you will ever need, and there is only one person who decides what EVERYONE in a fleet of 256 guys does: the FC. Of course this is lame for everyone except the fleetcommander, who really needs to be skilled, calm, analyzing and has to have a lot of knowledge. Few people step up not only to take the responsibility to FC but then also succeed without Makaluing the whole fleet.


Also: why care what "real fleets" do? Just because "real fleets" according to what you said (ill blindly believe you here) are successful if they are a massive homogen formation, we don't have to waive our fun and challenge, right?