Capture Mechanics

**Malorn** · 2012-04-09, 02:02 AM

This is my attempt to model the capture mechanics described by Higby from the AMAA, the PAX East Q&A, and bits of information going back to last July.

Before I comment on the mechanics I want to lay out current understanding of how it works and give a somewhat close approximation to the system. I am not proposing anything in this original post - I am only trying to model & explain the capture mechanics as we know them.

Quite a lot of math here, so if you don't like that move along to the next thread.

Ticket System & Adjacent Territory Bonus

From what we know, the capture system is like Battlefield conquest maps only inverted, so instead of losing tickets we are accumulating tickets until we reach a point where the base is captured. Adjacent territory augments the ticket pool by granting bonus starting tickets.

Originally Posted by Higby

The way base capture works right now in our internal play tests is capturing a base is almost like winning a conquest map in a Battle Field type game; there are several control nodes you have to hold, and holding the majority of them means you're gaining control of the base.

If you own a lot of adjacent territory then you have a bonus to the beginning your bar of how much you need before you fully capture that thing.

Higby also said this back in July, which is why I made 950 base tickets and calibrated against a 30-minute hack time:

Originally Posted by Higby

The capturing system - and this is going really deep into some of the gameplay stuff - but the way it works is based on your adjacent territory that your empire owns you get bonuses to being able to capture the territory that is connected to that. We have a system of adjacency, so the front line is constantly shifting and constantly evolving based on territory that's being captured. And you will be able to capture any piece of territory on the map but you get significant bonuses to capturing ones that are adjacent to the territory that you already control. So back-hacking is still something someone could go do. If I want to I can go to the middle of your territory and capture this piece of territory. It might take me 30 minutes to capture this one region and then when your empire goes back there and re-captures it might only take them 30 seconds.

Assuming 1000 tickets to capture a base as higby indicated (number doesn't actually matter, it'll scale). You get bonus tickets (and the other empires get the same), based on adjacent territory.

B = Maximum bonus amount. I'll assume 950 because it fits the estimates we've seen Higby make for extreme cases.
A = Adjacent edges on the territory that are friendly
T = Total capturable edges on the territory
S = Starting tickets

S = B * A / T

For B = 950 the formula becomes

S = 950 * A / T

(most bases have 18 edges, so using that for T)

Extreme cases:
For A = 0, S = 0 (capture of a facility that you have no territory around)
For A = 18, S = 950 (recap of facility deep behind your lines that someone capped)

Even case:
For A = 9, S = 475 (this is if control is split 50/50, like a border territory)

Moderately Uneven case:
For A = 5, S = 264 (this would be if you had a small amount of territory)
For A = 13, S = 686 (this is the inverse of the one above it)

Higby mentioned that it might take up to 30 minutes to capture a base without any adjacent territory, so based on the estimate that 0 -> 1000 takes approximately 30 minutes if you hold all capture points you can calculate a tickets/second capture rate. To keep the math simple, I'm going to round to .6 tickets / second, which translates to 36 tickets a minute, or 27.78 minutes to capture a facility, assuming you hold all 7 tickets and have 0 starting tickets. The rate of capture is approximately .6 tickets / second, for all 7 capture points, or .0857 tickets / second per capture point, assuming 7 capture points (rate might be faster for smaller numbers of capture points to keep this capture mechanic consistent).

We can thus calculate capture scenarios, which I detail below. Note that this scales to any size territory, not just facilities. Smaller territories have fewer edges, but the formulas above still work and can make for consistent capture experiences, though they may have fewer control nodes making the captures go more smoothly.

Back Hack Scenario

For the Back-hack scenario, the attacker has 0 adjacent territory edges, and the defender has all 18. Higby said this scenario played out like...

Originally Posted by Higby

Well not preventing back-hacking, but kinda disincentivizing them, you could go capture it but the enemy is gonna come back and re-secure super fast cause they still own all the adjacent territory.

Attacker starts at S = 0
Defender starts at S = 950

The defender only needs to gain 50 tickets to stop the capture attempt, while the attacker must gain many times that, so by simple calculation it will be difficult to capture the base because the attackers must not allow any control points to defenders

At S = 0, as established above, the time for the attackers to capture the facility is 27.78 minutes, assuming they have all control points.

At S = 950, it only takes defenders 1.38 minutes to capture the facility if they have all points. So a ghost-hack is easy to stop.

This is consistent with Higby's statement:

Originally Posted by Higby

So if I'm a defender at a base I only really have to hold maybe two control nodes if I own the adjacent territory because I have such a big head start that you can’t really keep up, unless you just wipe us out completely and hold every single control node then eventually you'll do it.

The attackers must also maintain all control points for most of the hack attempt. Losing even one for a prolonged period of time will allow the defender tickets to reach 1000 and stop the capture. Not catching all the points simultaneously can also cause attackers to lose the base without any defenders even being there, since we can assume the tickets will start accumulating after the first node is captured.

This is also roughly the number that Higby gave for this scenario back in July, which was 30 minutes to capture a behind-the-lines territory and 30 seconds to take it back. I'm a little off from there but I think that's within reasonable rounding. That's the worst, case, now lets look at a hotly contested base where both sides have the same amount of territory.

Hotly Contested Facility

For a hotly contested facility, A = 9, which is half of the 18. This is true for both sides. This is a scenario of an essentially even match-up, territory-wise.

A = 9, S = 475, so each side must accumulate 525 tickets.

In the best-case scenario, when one side controls all 7 control nodes, the capture will take 875 seconds, or 14.6 minutes.

But in a hotly contested base, it is unlikely that you would control 7 nodes, so lets look at the worst-case scenario when you only have 4/7 control points. That woudl be a capture rate of .3428 tickets/sec, which means the capture takes 1531 seconds, or 25.5 minutes.

(Note: this is is not strictly the worst-case scenario, as the worst-case would be not having any control points for a time and then regaining them which could extend the capture beyond 25 minutes, but I think as a hotly contested base scenario goes this is fairly close).

This is roughly the same amount of time that it took to capture a hot base in PS1 when you factor in the pre-hack time + 15 minute hack, although this method assumes the base is hotly contested the entire capture time, which is unlikely.

A typical base capture therefore might take about 15-20 minutes with this model, with a lower bound of 14.6 and an upper bound of 25.5, depending on level of resistance. This is consistent with Higby's model statement here:

Originally Posted by Higby

And this is a process that takes 15-20 minutes from start to finish unless you have every single adjacent territory and you capture the control nodes immediately

I modeled the "every single adjacent territory" case above in the Back Hack scenario.

You can then look at other in-between scenarios using the same math, but I don't quite find those as interesting. The interesting cases are the even-territory scenario and the horribly lopsided territory scenario.

For normal territories, we can just assume only one control point, with that one control point generating .6 tickets / second. If we assume same rules apply as facility captures, we can see territory will have roughly the same capture times.

I don't expect this model is exact by any means, but I think it's close and fits the data we have thus far been given.

Commentary

Things which I like about this system

Easy to balance.
There's only a few numbers to tweak to get the desired behavior. Just as I defined a target time to capture a base at S = 0, the devs can do the same. They can use this sort of modeling to get the exact capture times they want to see, just by solving simple equations.
Easy to Understand.
Simplicity is good for capture mechanics so new players / all players can understand what they need to do to optimize a capture. If it is complex then it might be mysterious to many players who might then make really poor strategic choices thinking they are doing the right thing.
Easily Extensible.
They can add more factors in quite easily, such as the starting ticket formula could be augmented by a variety of other factors without throwing the rest of the capture mechanic out of balance. They could also augment the capture rate by number of held control nodes. It doesn't have to be linear, but I think it's best to keep it linear in order to keep the capture predictible and easy to understand. Another extensibility point is that they could dynamically adjust the bonuses while the capture is underway if territory changes hands during the capture.
Every capture/resecure is discrete.
Just like PS1 everything gets "hacked" and it takes positive action by the defenders to go take it back and stop it. This makes it easy to assign capture & resecure XP/Resources.

Things I don't like about the system

Hack strength does not appear to be proportional to hack time.
So triggering a hack on a base that is well under control still might force defenders to sit around for a long time if the neighboring territory isn't owned. Clearly defenders have a lot of time to respond to a behind-the-lines capture attempt and will have an easy time re-capturing, but for the hotly contested base sceanrio it seems like it would be easy to quagmire a base by constantly triggering a ghost-hack capture attempt on a front-line territory. This would force defenders to stick around for the full duration of the resecure, while in PS1 the resecure would be a quick hack.
Doesn't appear to be dynamic to surrounding territory changes
This might not be a real concern and it could be adjusted, but since the starting tickets are determined by adjacent territories it leaves the question open about how changes to adjacent territories affect an in-progress hack. As mentioned in the pros sections it would be fairly easy for them to adjust the starting ticket count appropriately if neighboring territories changed hands while the capture was underway.
What constitutes a successful capture is arbitrary.
What I mean by this is that if we are in a hot base contested by multiple teams, we might gradually gain control and at some mysterious point our control bar fills and we capture the base, but the enemy is still there and still in control of one or more control points. It seems likely that the hack process would start all over again, possibly leading to multiple re-secures before we finally boot the enemy out. That might be OK in that situation as people attending the fight would get periodic reward boosts from the cap rather than one big long fight with a reward at the very end. It seems like an awkward scenario to me. Could also be due to not having all the details of the system, so I won't press too hard on this.

Hopefully as we learn more some of the concerns might vanish and the model's accuracy can be further improved.

I'd really like to know how captures are initiated, it might help mitigate one of my concerns. In the absence of confirmation I assume that captures are initiated simply by someone capturing at least one control node in a territory/facility.

Edit: Higby confirmed via Twitter earlier that capturing any node initiates the capture, as assumed above. Unfortunately I believe this means I still have all of the listed concerns for the system.

I also have some ideas and formulas for a Tug-of-War model that I may post later in this thread.

Zulthus · 2012-04-09, 02:39 AM

That was too much for me to care to read but I skimmed it and it looks well thought out. Not sure how I feel about the morale-type capture system though.

DviddLeff · 2012-04-09, 06:48 AM

Good analysis.

What I take away from this is that it will be very important to capture surrounding territory before tackling a base, as this will give you a much bigger advantage when it comes to tickets. I like this, as it simulates cutting the base off from reinforcements yet also gives defenders a bit of warning, so the tactic to strike the base first and take it by surprise is also valid. This also means that uncontested territory can be quickly captured - no more sitting around for 15 minutes doing nothing unless you are stupid.

I am not too sure I like the tickets counting up - as you say it is arbitrary. How to replace it? Perhaps have the defenders tickets counting down as we had with NTU originally and when it runs out the defenders cannot spawn and the base flips. More points captured and the faster the defenders lose tickets. Adjacent defender territories could give the facility tickets, so capturing them even while the hack is in progress would still make a difference. It's a simpler system but again how to deal with two attacking empires is an issue.

Shogun · 2012-04-09, 07:35 AM

sorry, due to no time TL: DR, although i know malorns threads are always great to read.

but i got a question... (please ignore if it´s somewhere in the op)

do we have any info on what we actually have to do to start the capturing process?
will it still be started by "hacking" or interacting with a console? in higbys interviews i got the impression this concept has been replaced by the stupid capturepoint concept (like tf2 or battlefront has) and holding a capturepoint boils down to occupy a room and keep enemys out.

although the old concept almost played the same way, it felt awesome to hack a terminal and have your friends defending you while you are vulnerable doing this.
just standing around in a room that magically switches to your side after some time feels dumb.

waldizzo · 2012-04-09, 10:01 AM

Good post.

A question I've recently come up with is if territory can ever go neutral. In the gamesfront Q&A, Higby said, "If the hexes are neutral, the capture will take place as normal." So, I'm guessing that territory can go neutral. Wonder what the requirements are for that process? Anyone recall seeing anything about this?

Aurmanite · 2012-04-09, 10:18 AM

It amazes me how hard reading is for some people and how quickly they'll admit it.

This is a fantastic post. If the capture system works like this it will really reward the squads/outfits that focus on objectives and get things done. I assume there will be missions for capturing specific nodes along the territory, and while the zerg is busy grinding meat, the coordinated players will be creating and completing missions all day.

Good stuff.

captainkapautz · 2012-04-09, 11:24 AM

Originally Posted by Malorn

What constitutes a successful capture is arbitrary.
What I mean by this is that if we are in a hot base contested by multiple teams, we might gradually gain control and at some mysterious point our control bar fills and we capture the base, but the enemy is still there and still in control of one or more control points. It seems likely that the hack process would start all over again, possibly leading to multiple re-secures before we finally boot the enemy out. That might be OK in that situation as people attending the fight would get periodic reward boosts from the cap rather than one big long fight with a reward at the very end. It seems like an awkward scenario to me. Could also be due to not having all the details of the system, so I won't press too hard on this.

i'd wager a guess and say that after a sucessful capture the base will go into some kind of lockdown where it can't be hacked, most likely explained by saying that it takes like 5 minutes for the base to accept the new operating system, cause I dunno TR use windows, NC use android and Vanoobs use apple ios.

**Malorn** · 2012-04-09, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by Shogun

sorry, due to no time TL: DR, although i know malorns threads are always great to read.

but i got a question... (please ignore if it´s somewhere in the op)

do we have any info on what we actually have to do to start the capturing process?
will it still be started by "hacking" or interacting with a console?

He confirmed via twitter that taking any control point starts the capture process. Interacting was mentioned in some article or another, and hacking is specifically an infiltrator ability not involved in capturing objectives.

headcrab13 · 2012-04-09, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by Aurmanite

It amazes me how hard reading is for some people and how quickly they'll admit it.

Eh, it's not that people don't like reading, per se. It's just that Malorn greatly over-analyzed a topic that really has no bearing on the final game, as we don't have all the details, and what IS there will undoubtedly change before release.

EVILPIG · 2012-04-09, 12:13 PM

Nearly a year ago, the capture mechanic was much like the Domination game mode of CoD. There is a proximity to the capture point and once there is enemy within that area, the capture begins. The speed of the capture would be affected by the number of enemies within that area and most likely, the number of friendlies. Now, ownership of adjacent territories also has affects this.

Things are always changing during development, so we probably don't have a complete picture of this yet and your current understanding of how it works is most likely, "at this moment". Either way, the goal seems to be to allow an overwhelming force on a front line base to be able to capture quickly, versus, a solo ghost hacker, who would take considerable time.

Stardouser · 2012-04-09, 12:20 PM

Here's the question I have. Do tickets have anything to do with kills or deaths? They do in Battlefield, and since you refer to a reverse BF mechanic, I thought I'd ask.

**Malorn** · 2012-04-09, 12:32 PM

If they do it has not been mentioned. I suspect not because it complicates the capture mechanics, makes them less predictable, and discourages risk-taking.

**Malorn** · 2012-04-09, 02:11 PM

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

This also means that uncontested territory can be quickly captured - no more sitting around for 15 minutes doing nothing unless you are stupid.

Not necessarily - one of the things I don't like about this is because border territories could have ghost hacks that end up lasting a long time because of the race-style count-up mechanic. The only time hacks don't take a while is if you have all the surrounding territory. As territory decreases, the longer they take, regardless of how long the hack has been held. It is one reason I prefer a tug-of-war system, as ghost-capture attempts that are quickly caught are quickly squashed. That does not appear to be the case in the current system.

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

I am not too sure I like the tickets counting up - as you say it is arbitrary. How to replace it? Perhaps have the defenders tickets counting down as we had with NTU originally and when it runs out the defenders cannot spawn and the base flips. More points captured and the faster the defenders lose tickets. Adjacent defender territories could give the facility tickets, so capturing them even while the hack is in progress would still make a difference. It's a simpler system but again how to deal with two attacking empires is an issue.

I think the best replacement of the counting-up is a tug-of-war model, but while simple in concept, it is a bit harder to implement than this relatively simple race-style model they have.

The main reason a tug of war gets more complicated is that with two factions a tug-of-war is a one-dimensional line, while with three factions a tug-of-war model becomes two-dimensional space, and a 4th empire (if they implement AI later) would make it three-dimensional space which would be difficult to visualize at-a-glance in game. A race style system doesn't care about that, as all three (or four or more) empires are racing toward the capture-line at different rates and are, for all intents and purposes, completely independent of each other. A tug-of-war model requires them to interact, making it more difficult to balance. I have a design idea on how to get the same behavior this model provides in a tug-of-war version that doesn't have some the quirkiness that a race model requires. I'll post it later tonight.

SgtMAD · 2012-04-09, 07:07 PM

how does a resecure work?

just clear the CC and you stop the hack?

**Malorn** · 2012-04-09, 07:29 PM

A resecure is the same as a capture. As a defender you have to beat the attackers to the cap.

Since adjacent territory determines starting tickets, the defenders have a huge advantage for territories secured by several other friendly territories. With a large ticket advantage you might only need 1-2 control points out of 7 to still beat the attackers to the 1000-ticket mark (or whatever the number is).

But the closer you get to front-line territories that might only have 50% or less friendly bordering territory the capture and the resecure are just semantics.