Fuel Enhancements

redrum

Thoughts on how carriers and fighters fuel costs should work? I think I see 2 options:

Simple - If carriers and fighters are moved together during combat or non-combat move then only the carrier is charged fuel. This would include moving into combat and so a fighter moved with a carrier into combat wouldn't be charged fuelCost or fuelFlatCost.
Noncombat Only - If carriers and fighters are moved together during non-combat move then only the carrier is charged fuel. Any moves during combat move are considered that the fighter has taken off from the initial carrier position so is always charged fuel during all combat moves.

There are other more complex variations of these that meet somewhere in the middle but I'm pretty hesitant to go there. Open to suggestions and ideas but want to pick something we feel works well across all maps and is fun/intuitive to use.

Frostion

Simple has my vote. It seems logical and during game it would make sense if fuel was consumed on these terms. People would also see the carrier actually carrying fighters, not just acting as a landing strip at sea.

General_Zod

@redrum

Choice 2 seems better to me. Choice 1 would only be logical if your making air units true cargo on the acc. But then you need handle issue where air units are being carried 2 sea zones while cargo during CM or NCM. Then the air units fly their full normal movement during CM or NC, in addition to the moves as cargo. Or maybe you have a solution already.

wc_sumpton

@redrum I tend to agree with @General_Zod here. Choice 2.
If you have a loaded transport, you only need to click on the transport to move it an its cargo. Moving the ac and fighter requires that both items are clicked on to move. I can see the point of not charging for a NCM where both ac and fighter start and end in the same territory. But any move during CM, which implies that both are going into battle, should charge both their movement resources.

Hepps

Deuce has my vote as well.

redrum

Well, given that I'd vote for option 2 as well, I'm going to move forward with that. In the future, if we get lots of maps that implement fuel adding different options around consumption should be fairly easy. Now the fun part, implementing it and making sure it works properly with both fuelCost and flatFuelCost.

Frostion

I can't really see the logic in fighters paying fuel for moving through several sea territories before entering a battle, especially if they start out in the same sea territory as their motherships and presumably would sit on the deck of the carrier most of the time. If fighters are part of a fleet that moves through the seas with the purpose of ending up in a battle, the fighters would not use more or less fuel than if the same fighters were part of a fleet that moved great sea distances with no intention of ending up in a battle.

If the fuel cost idea is based on the fighters patrolling around their fleet on the way, then all non moving land based fighters should also pay fuel every turn, just to keep them able and activ in the defence of their land territory. And I don't see that happening. Why should fighters then pay fuel for sitting on the deck of a carrier, or for being transported a great distance and then launched.

A forced fuel payment would also not make any sense if we talk about spacefighters sitting in the launchbay of a spaceship, waiting to get out into a battle when the fleet arrives at its destination.

In both the WW and the space scenario, a turn normally simulates a long period of time where a fleet is on the move, plus a relative to that very short period of battletime in the end, where the fighters go activ. Not enough time to justify that the fighters should pay the same amount of fuel as if they were flying across a continent to attack a target and then return home.

Also, I can't see why talk about "true cargo" vs. carried fighters should influence the answer to the question about fighters using fuel or not when on a carrier. Just because carried tanks should not use fuel when carried in a cargo hold, it does not mean that fighters with the ability to launch into battle should use fuel as their land cruising and attacking counterparts.

prastle

@frostion well I think the idea is that they are launched into combat and the mother ships steams closer for pickup. OR they go for a free ride of 2 in non combat. Just my 2 cents up to you guys.

redrum

Here is the PR for the carrier/air fuel changes: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/3249

@Frostion I don't think any solution is gonna be perfect. I guess the way I see it is I'd rather charge fuel for all combat moves then have the situation where you move fighters into battle with a carrier and charge 0 fuel when they are participating in a battle. I think it also probably better aligns with how carrier/fighter work from a movement perspective since they can't move on the carrier then launch for their full range, they are considered launched from their starting position. Anyways, I think moving forward with the non-combat solution is a good place to start and once we have some maps implement fuel then we can always adjust it if it doesn't play well or feel intuitive.

redrum

And now its in the latest pre-release: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/releases/tag/1.9.0.0.9693

I played around with it on WaW variants fuel and seems to work pretty well. That's I think the only map that has fuel with carriers/fighters implemented.

Hepps

@redrum Yes as far as I know I think you are correct.

Frostion

I hope to get some free spare time to work on Iron War and a new fuel consumption system soon. But it might be a week or so. Anyone is free to fool around with the XML and make an unofficial new version for testing. The experience would be valuable, just remember to use the latest XML from the repository!

Frostion

@redrum
I am testing out Iron War with the new fuel system. One of the big problems that will still prevent Iron War from using a fuel consumption system is the AI’s and human possibility to send out aircraft on combat moves, and then in NCM the aircraft are lost because they don’t have fuel to return.

Unless aircraft are kamikaze units, they should not be able to take off without also reserving their potential full use of fuel, meaning that a full return trip would be possible. If they are killed on mission, then bad luck, the fuel is just lost. If they return home without using their full potential and reserved fuel, then good luck, the player get fuel back in the bank. This should be terms for both AI and humans.

Without a game engine enforced system that secures the above, the map will in no way be AI compatible and Humans also sometimes end up in situations where they maybe lose aircraft because they didn’t calculate right when moving out aircraft on CMs, and this ruins the game experience. Players will feel “this is a shitty game, as I would never have used these fighters in this way if I knew they would die like this.” We can’t count on players having minds like calculators or expect players to feel any fun in having to be extra careful when moving aircraft around, just because these (unlike other unit) have a tendency to die from a lacking fuel.

I hope this or something similar cold be implemented in the future.
… or maybe there could be added a new unit option like:
<option name="fuelReservedOnCombatMove" value="4"/>
or
<option name="fullMovementFuelReserved" value="true"/>

wc_sumpton

@frostion
I think the <option "fuelFlatCost" value="fuel" count="4"/> is what you are thinking about for this. But I don't think that the 'unused' portions is returned.

Cheers...

Frostion

@wc_sumpton Well, the fuel flat rate is the second best option and could make it AI compatible. It just makes it very fuel costly to use aircraft. Optimally unspent fuel should be returned. But until now, I can live with the fuel flat rate. This could also justify aircraft being relatively PU cheap in Iron War

General_Zod

@frostion I think some of the very valid points you made above about players being forced to calculate and micro manage aircraft should be alleviated by this as well. With this model. I look forward to testing it out again.

redrum

@frostion So I agree that trying to use the traditional per movement fuel with air still has the problems. I strongly recommend trying fuelFlatCost as I think it avoids those issues in a much simpler and elegant way than trying to add a lot of logic around fuel reserves. Looking at air units from a using a tank of fuel perspective, I think makes sense and avoids having the player to do lots of calculations. It also avoids lots of edge cases with some kind of reserve system around when should reserves be returned vs lost.

I'd very much like to see a map test out fuelFlatCost and see what players think. If it doesn't work well or people don't seem to like it then we can discuss some kind of reserves system or even other ideas.

wc_sumpton

@frostion
One thing to think about when using the 'fuelFlatCost' is to set it to one less then the maximum movement of the air unit. For fighters set it to 3 and bombers set it to 5 then I think you have a nice go-between for these units.

redrum

@wc_sumpton Depends on what you want the balance of fuel consumption to be for land vs sea vs air. If you want high fuel consumption for air then yeah you can essentially set it to something close to their max movement since most times you move air you tend to use most of their moves. I'd probably argue most maps are better off keeping air fuel consumption more inline with land/sea so if you have like 1 per move for land/sea then having air be like 1-2 fuelFlatCost would keep them more balanced.

General_Zod

To echo @redrum a bit.

I think its, crucial to not over power a unit. Especially air units. But a successful fuel model will have a few moving parts to contend with. Not only, the units overall fuel consumption and abilities, build cost, etc., in comparison to all other units. As well as each nations access to the actual distribution of the fuel resource territories.

With Iron War, even more to contend with, due to iron resource. It will surely need tweaking as play testing feedback comes in. But I think this game will be a hit once it's balanced out. Even more so if it's multi player friendly.