Discussion Let's talk about fleeting objectives

[Jsc]

...Suggesting that fleeters should have to routinely circumvent faction staff to create their own solutions is remarkably ignorant of this problem. Faction staff should strive to create objectives that get people hyped to participate in,..​

I'd like to cut through a few great things everybody has already addressed in detail and just address this comment very specifically.

And I'm going with solid 'nope nope nope.' Oh no. I'm totally with the Faction Staff 'status quo' on this one. Until, and if, the culture of fleeting changes around here for the better? I'd sideline it every single time too and tell you I just did everybody a favor.

In fact,.. (I'm going to push hard on this change the culture thing and not on casting blame where it isn't warranted,) ...Suggestion Thread incoming: If I was an Admin I'd go so far as to mirror our current ruleset about Duels not counting in Invasions too. I'd slap a nice 'The amount of Fleet wins or loses do not contribute to Invasion Victory Conditions' right next to the notation about Dueling in bright orange crayon.

Anyway. I don't blame any Faction Staff Member anywhere on this site one bit for sidelining Fleeting objectives. I say, smart! Good for them. And until the culture surrounding Fleeting changes around here? I'd stay as far away from it as possible too.

Don't blame Faction Staff. Fix the culture, update the Victory Conditions to smash 'gamerness' like we did with dueling wins, and bam! They'll change themselves. Win win.

2 cents. This was a side track. Continue.

 

[Caarlyle Rausgeber]

Jsc

Your entire thing there with the orange and the limits, was redundant. Bigger fleets have never, ever in the history of Chaos ensured victory. See Kaeshana. See even the NIO's first invasion of Bastion. Hell, in the latter thread I literally lost my command ship and performed and crash landed into another guy's ship. It has an always will be about milking tension. That has never, at least in my view, been in dispute.

It's always been about characterisation. Writing your own personal Thrawn/Nelson/Hornblower/Donitz/Yammamoto, even if you're under command of a bigger fish. But working with those bigger fish (In my experience the ever lovely Cyrus Tregessar and Fiolette Yvarro), is also great for like, forming relations whatever. I've never seen an invasion really hinge on its fleeting and whoever won/lost the engagements. In fact, 9/10, you don't even get to see a real winner in regards to fighting. It's pretty much a dead heat most times. With some guys sacrificing vessels for time etc.

Take the invasion of L-49, one of my favourites. The battle between FO and GA forces was super tight. Guys lost on both sides, and the climax of the engagement was when the GA's then flagship moved to suicidally ram the FO blockade. And it was that set piece which then defined the invasion. Would the GA's last minute gambit work? Or would the beleaguered but still effective FO command hold steady? And based on the RPJ results, the FO held.

Point is, is you're harping on about something that is non-existent in Chaos' fleeting scene.

This post, brought to you thanks to more sleep deprivation and liquor.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

I won't wade in here too much further except to point out to Jsc that I'm pretty sure that's how the victory conditions already work. RPJs don't make a distinction between character duels and fleeting engagements and don't tally fleeting objective 'wins'. Like the rest of the invasion it only plays a factor as far as who tells the more compelling story. Sorry to say but your change hasn't come.

While I agree with Acaadi and Gir's core assertion that smaller engagements are more accessible to newer fleeters and that seeing more of them would probably be a good thing, I also don't see it as a silver bullet. A few people in particular latched onto my one character one ship idea, but that was just an example of a potential unique ruleset for a fleet engagement that would shake up the usual status quo. I notice some of the same people seem to actually be in favor of the same thing, ie more interesting and less conventional objectives. Of course I agree that every future fleet engagement shouldn't be so dramatically limited in scale.

There's been discussion about faction teams needing to step up and get more creative, incorporate their fleeters in the planning process, and integrate space battles into the wider plot. I agree this would be nice, but I think we shouldn't underestimate how that can be easier said than done. There's a big disparity between fleeting and stuff like ground combat, both in scale and a single character's ability to effect the battle around them.

There are for sure things we could be doing to promote more fleeting. Both on the faction team end and the member input end. None of the faction teams I ever worked on were so obsessed with creative control that they weren't excited to incorporate ideas from members so I encourage everyone to continue thinking of more specific types of potential engaging and interactive storylines or rulesets.

I do agree though with points made by several here about the minutia. You can call it a fleeting problem or a factory problem or whatever you want to call it, but as long as it's treated like a grand strategy game I am super skeptical fleeting will ever achieve the level of equality that fleeters desire. In the end factions are always going to design invasions with stuff to do for the most writers possible and I really don't think fleeting's only problem is the stories aren't interesting enough.

 

[Jsc]

Caarlyle Rausgeber Zark San Tekka - I stand corrected. Well said.

 

[Errix Feh'room]

One suggestion I can make to this is that when an invasion occurs, a doc or some form of mutual communication happens between the groups choosing to fleet. Establish what the fleeters want to see, coordinate with ground teams, set the fleet sizes and try to brainstorm some ideas for how to come up with stories that can engage everyone.

We have pilots wanting to be more prevalent in stories, fleeters wanting to have some impact besides blasting ships, and frustration on all sides about different viewpoints that ultimately boil down to how to make fleeting fun, engaging, and viable for new people to join.

There will be disparity in ability, there will be disparity in how it is approached, but if we can make a standard for how to make it more engaging between groups, and one that is implemented to try and clear up miscommunication whether on discord or just personal misunderstandings, something to reference as a hard copy.

I feel it would go a long way to clearing up frustrations felt by everyone to some degree.

I know some groups have a roster sign up for who to tag, and give some clarity on that front. But another such thing for fleeters to look at for fleet sizing, who is doing what, and what stories people would like to tell or attempt, I feel it would alleviate some of the "walls" that are up for those interested to see and maybe try to bring a healthier approach to fleeting at large.

Just my two cents.

 

[Anashla Deshal]

While I have read through some of this thread I'll confess I have not read everyone's comments fully but as a newer fleeter on Chaos let me share my perspective. My first time fleeting was during AoC's invasions of CIS planets, hell my first invasion was Ryloth so when I say new I mean within the past year or two.

A thing to understand about me is I love strategy, my main genre for gaming is strategy so that affects my thinking. When I approach a thread I look at what makes the most tactical sense in the moment, what the sector of space I am in looks like and how best exploit the 'terrain' I am looking at the battlespace in a 3d map in my head but at the same I have to reign that back in go "Chaos doesn't work like this". For me I would love for fleeting to be more tactical (Im a nerd about firing arcs and positioning.) But unless we are going to start doing dice rolls and having fleet judges that wont happen here because its not structured that way.

That said I love a grand fleet battle myself but again I don't feel Chaos lends itself to that. I agree whole heartedly with ADM. Reshmar what makes sense for chaos is smaller ship battles. For a real world analogue when the United States goes to war, we do not send the entire atlantic/pacific fleet to attack, we send one or two carrier battlegroups, a star wars equivalent would be to send a pair of star destroyers and their escorts to attack a planet. I forget who said it above but a single star destroyer was meant to be a thing of terror when it arrived, yet we toss them around here as if they were TIE fighters fresh off the assembly line.

My $.02

Edit: Just realized this thread is like a week old, oh well.

 

[Cyrus Tregessar]

Lets revive it why not.

I'm of the opinion that one of the biggest barriers to entry is the lack of consistency that is generally exacerbated rather than mitigated by looking at canon. Large Fleets? Small fleets? Irrelevant, because the biggest issue is that there's no proper consensus or understanding on how they work.

Canon is useless because the same source that tells you a single ISD cant devastate a planet and would subjugate a star system has them destroyed en masse by singles and pairs of starfighters. The plot has always driven how effective or ineffective certain ships/weapons/etc are, but here we don't have the advantage of knowing how the outcome.

There would be some value, I think, in establishing a 'chaos standard' for how stuff works, at least in a very general sense. We're halfway there already with the rating system from the factory. The flip side is this would be way more structure than Chaos goes for normally and would ultimately be a reflection of the opinions of those who contributed.

I have no real solution to this, but I do plan on making a 'my assumptions' type of guide.

 

[Ellie Mors]

So basically you're saying that fleet battles have little to no barrier to entry now and you're laying the entirety of the blame at the feet of Faction Admins for not catering to these members more?

It's a bold position, I'll give you that.

Being that I was the faction owner of the Sith Empire for the majority of last year and negotiated every invasion up until the end of October, yes I can say with certainty that there is significant pushback to attempts to negotiate a more narrative driven fleeting engagement scene over the kind of numbers games you're pulling out with your quotes.

The invasion of Borosk & Troska, for example, had the faction owner opposite me rejecting an attempt to expand on fleeting measures beyond it being largely a slugfest between two sides because they wanted to focus on the ground that would feature their faction's plan for the invasion. The focus on intertwining the fleeting scene with the boarding & ground scenes enhanced the narrative of the invasion to the point that it secured the winning faction's victory over focusing on the ground & boarding narrative, as the opposing faction had.

In terms of actual negotiations, actions taken by writers during the process of the invasion, and the results seen from that I can surmise that:

1. There is a negative result from trying to push away fleeting or any other niche form of writing in favor of a hyperfocused approach to invasions rather than embracing it or at least attempting to approach it in a manner where it serves as a bolster to other objective's storylines instead of playing out in a vacuum.
2. Faction staff do, in fact, try to focus on objectives which suit their personal tastes rather than trying to be creative in order to give their members and opposition's members a more engaging and enjoyable story.
3. You don't need to cater to these members, you just need to involve their parts in invasions with the rest of the invasion proper. You don't call the shift of duel win counting to siege writing catering to duelists, you call it an improvement in writing/narrative.

I honestly don't understand the pushback to shifting how fleeting is approached so that it is more involved with the rest of the invasion's storyline. Nobody here is saying "cater to fleeters more", we're discussing how we can adjust how fleeting itself is gone about, how it is approached, and how people who do fleeting can change their writing style so that it is both more accessible and can be better interwoven with actual, meaningful, plot points beyond "just shoot at each other in space while the rest of us do something meaningful and personal".

Edit: And in regards to barrier to entry, in most instances I will assert it is nonexistent in the same vein that dueling in invasions (or siege writing, whatever the most common approach to invasions is these days) has a very small barrier to entry. Sure, you can pull some examples of people who still go by the super archaic style of fleet writing and all the jazz that comes with it, but even those writers are more than willing to use numbers that are digestible by newer or less experienced members who aren't really comfortable when they see a big number next to a ship if they are asked.

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

Why not concentrate on a smaller group inside a larger fleet when doing invasions and such. When you are writing on the ground it is understood that your force is just a smaller part of the planet-wide force that is fighting. Like fighter combat and such is part of a larger dog fight setting where you control only your fighter or your fighter and its wingman or even you control a squadron.

You can command a single ship in a larger fleet or line or whatever and concentrate on the actions of that single ship and its crew. Or a line of four to six ships that are a smaller part of the larger fleet fighting. A group of corvettes is always fun to write. Done it many times and it has been some of my fondest writing. Command a single star destroyer and its escorts. or a line of 3 heavy cruisers. Fleets do not have to be big to be big. Your force is part of the larger group fighting in orbit. If in the process of writing your story on your ship to with your small group something larger happens in the over all battle so be it. You can give the overall vision of this massive fleet battle going on while only having to manage your smaller part. When I say smaller battles I mean battles between PC. Work out a smaller part of the battle with someone and have fun just engaging each other's small force to the backdrop while all hell let loose in space. Smaller fleet battles with players engaging each other's small force is much easier to manage and far more attractive to someone who has not done fleet writing a lot or doesn't like having to micro-manage 30 ships at one time.

Make realistic forces such as lines and squadrons where you have 1 large star destroyer class ship with 2 to 3 escorts lines which consist of heavy cruisers for ship to ship, light cruiser for defense and fighter interdiction, frigates for support and special operations, and corvettes for picket and hit and run missions. for every destroyer out there in the star wars universe there are 20 or more smaller ships escorting and supporting it.

A Star Destroyer is supposed to be a scary big thing that pretty much ends a battle before it starts just by being there. Chaos fleeting has them little more than an escort. Something that is just window dressing for a battlecruiser to dreadnaught. Make small ships matter again. Make attack craft matter again. Fighters kill super star destroyers, 9 out of 10 times. They are pretty much the only way to kill them unless you just outnumber and overpower them with far superior numbers. and meters don't do it. 10km of anything will not beat an SSD, 20 KM of destroyers won't do it. They are meant to be near unkillable in battle. Two SSD's fighting each other is most likely going to end in a stalemate. bang two rocks together long enough and one will eventually beat but hit a rock with a smaller pick precisely will crack it much faster. If your gonna use an SSD make it just the one and make it an NPC target. make it the objective. Your ship or small line or squadron work to protect to destroy the SSD.

Fleeting can be a lot of fun. It can result in amazing stories and incredible writing. You do not have to bring a battlecruiser or even multiple destroyers. More ships will never win a battle. you bring 20 battlecruisers to a fight and corvettes will tear you apart with hit and run actions. Fighters will eventually overpower your defense screen and they will tear you apart. frigates can sit out at long range where their small profiles make it almost impossible for you to hit even with long-range weapons. Light cruiser will sweep fighters and corvettes for you but if you do not have the,m well. you need a broom. Heavy cruisers can hit as hard as destroyers in most cases and give you separation of fire and are much more effective than one big target you can hit without sensors from fifty kilometers away.

the important thing is to have fun and for your opponent to have fun. If they are there with a few ships to write a good story don't pop in with 5 times their numbers. Story wins battles, not ships. It is far easier to write a good story while you're not trying to keep up with 50 ships. It is no fun sitting in a ship that is basically a big "HAHA you cant hurt me" brick that can not move. Supes sit there once they get into a system. They are not maneuverable past moving in straight lines. You do not "turn" an SSD.

So if you want this massive amazingly large fleet battle that's fine. Set it up as a backdrop and you command a small force within the larger battle. You want your pretty new SSD to be the tip of your fleet spear that's awesome. Make it an objective to protect or destroy. You want this epic clash of 2 SSD's duking it out against each other that's cool. Make it a backdrop to the battle. Your force has to run a picket screen or you have to engage a line or squadron that is moving in on this side or that. Your heavy cruiser line can move in and take on another PC destroyer or heavy cruisers or even move in on an NPC destroyer or whatever. If a faction has 5 fleets and the other 2, have two engage the enemy PC while the others move in on NPC forces or objectives. Take damage, take losses, don't be afraid to lose. Writing a battle is not about winning, it's about fighting. If you win and it projects poorly then are you really winning. Losing a fight can ray your forces to fight harder and give you that in character tension you need to pull off a comeback that is realistic and a good story.


So that's my rant of the week. Fleeting can be fun if we do it right and work together.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

There would be some value, I think, in establishing a 'chaos standard' for how stuff works, at least in a very general sense. We're halfway there already with the rating system from the factory. The flip side is this would be way more structure than Chaos goes for normally and would ultimately be a reflection of the opinions of those who contributed.

Okay let's start here.

Canon is useless because the same source that tells you a single ISD cant devastate a planet and would subjugate a star system has them destroyed en masse by singles and pairs of starfighters. The plot has always driven how effective or ineffective certain ships/weapons/etc are, but here we don't have the advantage of knowing how the outcome.

Oh and, put more emphasis on Fighters. They seemed to be able to take down the Destroyers or whatever in the films but it seems like in fleeting, there is more and more emphasis on a divide between fleeters and dog fighting, when both should be more equal to one and other?

As someone who writes pilots in basically every invasion I do, I can attest to what Zark San Tekka said. I'd love to see more emphasis on starfighters over capital ships in some way, and I think that could be accomplished with his presented ideas, including starfighter-centric objectives, limiting fleet sizes (one PC per ship), setting the focus on smaller ships (Which are more realistic for starfighters to engage), and other objectives where capital ships play more of a support role. In the movies and shows the big bad Sith and the heroic Jedi MCs always jump in starfighters if they need to create a big break during a naval battle. We don't really see that level of engagement on Chaos, mainly for the reasons Zark listed and given that, in my opinion, sometimes the advantages that Force Users have in piloting fighters don't translate as well to the medium of text-based RP, as dogfighting can get somewhat technical (Albeit not to the degree of fleeting). That said, I will admit that anything that allows my characters more moments to shine beyond dogfights that well, sometimes feel meaningless given the presence of so many big ships and legions of NPCs, gets a +1 from me.

A Star Destroyer is supposed to be a scary big thing that pretty much ends a battle before it starts just by being there. Chaos fleeting has them little more than an escort. Something that is just window dressing for a battlecruiser to dreadnaught. Make small ships matter again. Make attack craft matter again. Fighters kill super star destroyers, 9 out of 10 times. They are pretty much the only way to kill them unless you just outnumber and overpower them with far superior numbers. and meters don't do it. 10km of anything will not beat an SSD, 20 KM of destroyers won't do it. They are meant to be near unkillable in battle. Two SSD's fighting each other is most likely going to end in a stalemate. bang two rocks together long enough and one will eventually beat but hit a rock with a smaller pick precisely will crack it much faster. If your gonna use an SSD make it just the one and make it an NPC target. make it the objective. Your ship or small line or squadron work to protect to destroy the SSD.

My point isn't that you're 'wrong'. I'm sure given enough time just as many star destroyer fans would show up arguing for more emphasis on ships of the line with similar convincing reasons. My point is if canon is arbitrary its all arbitrary, so how do we decide what is Chaos canon? Especially given the difficulties inherent in balancing an asymmetric war game to both side's satisfaction. Are Imperial factions willing to sacrifice shields on their standard TIE fighters? How much damage will the lightside's constant ramming actions cause? Our alternative to the canon rebels vs. empire balance dynamic seems to be a bunch of empire clones with different alignments painted on. That doesn't really interest me either.

I can appreciate the problems a more specific rule set would solve. It would make a lot of headaches go away for sure. But even if you manage to successfully crowdsource a magna carta for fleeters that everyone can be happy with, when one half of the argument is 'fleeting has too much minutia' I share your uncertainty about the answer being 'more minutia'. That seems like it could be just as likely to have the opposite effect if you have to study a list of rules and ratings in order to even play.

 

[Rynn Vizsla]

I don't think anyone's willing to sacrifice anything in terms of their submissions. All of the flaws noted in Imperial designs in SW canon have been fixed through the Factory; shields and hyperdrive on TIE fighters, comprehensive point defence networks on Impstars, etc. The same mindset can be attributed to starship weapon systems, as we've got a lot more exotic weaponry these days - be it starship-mounted disruptors, masers, or "not" solar ionization weaponry. To me, I believe it adds another layer of complexity when calling damage - as most people tend to err on the side of caution and take little to no damage when they've got what amounts to a starship "alpha striking" them.

This then leads into OOC conflict, or people submitting even more powerful weaponry that people will still respond with: my deflector shields go brrr.

Without something "official" in a sense to go by, damage, speed, and every factor that's involved in space battles are open to interpretation. Which, breeds more unintended chaos, and getting people to swiftly lose interesting in space battles - electing to keep them as background noise - while they teleport around the battlefield, lol.

So, in the end, I believe it comes down to changing the mindsets of the people that are involved in space battles, rather than trying to "enforce" some guidelines that'd help them out. Duels don't matter when it comes to Invasions, or any judged RP thread - so why should the supposed minutia matter to any space battle? Perhaps, the best course of action is to steer away from a text-based version of SW: Armada and focus more on the stories that can be told via space battles. Sure, they're not as visceral or action-packed as the ground battles - but they can easily milk the hell outta tension.

Does your opponent move a portion of their flotilla in a way your character doesn't expect? Bam, scramble to counter. Outgunned, outnumbered? Hold the line until it's impossible to do so anymore, then start adopting "hit and fade" tactics to keep yourself in the fight. There are so many potential scenarios here that often get turned into let's fight over objective 3 that's framed over some planet. It's no wonder they're the "throwaway" objective to keep the niche happy.