How to kill blobs?

[Daztur]

I've never played Eve but I like following the war news since the number of people invovled make it interesting to me. I understand that a large problem with fleet battles is that players naturally form massive fleets that cause show-stopping lag on a regular basis. The devs have tried to deal with this in a variety of ways that have all been (I think) ineffective or have backfired.

Now I might have missed something, since like I said I've never played the game, but if you look at the history of warfare massing bunches of your soldiers into a big group (those thingies called armies) has been standard operating procedure for most of history. Aside from guerilla warfare, which while commong in Eve, I don't see really appling to POS warfare, things only changed with the rise of front-based warfare, which was fairly recent. So what CCP should be doing is getting players to deploy in fronts and look at the historical reasons for the rise of front-based warfare. They don't seem to be doing so at all.

Historically the reason why things changed from having clumped up armies to having front lines is that armies became big enough that supplying them by foraging/stealing shit from the local peasants became increasingly difficult and you can't really forage for fuel to supply a mechanized army on the move. This meant that if the enemy gets behind you they can cut off your supplies, which causes you to become fucked in short order. In order to keep enemies from cutting off your supplies you need to cover your flanks, which caused armies in wars like WW I to spread out across hundreds of miles.

In Eve, as far as my never having played the game self knows, there's no real penalty to having the enemy get between you and your base of operations. Because of this there isn't any reason to guard the flanks/rear of an advancing fleet so there isn't any real reason to split up your fleet and do anything but blob.

So basically to break up blogs, Eve needs to incorporate logistics and logistics are notoriously not fun. I'm not sure how fun the following solution would be, but I think it would break up blobs:

1. Non-capitol ships stay as is.
2. Capitol ships need some kind of fuel that they run through damn fast wether shooting or moving. The cost of this fuel isn't too important but they need to burn through it very fast and it needs to be bulky. I think I heard something about capitol ships already needing fuel, so I guess whatever fuel they need lasts too long and/or isn't bulky enough. It'd have to be bulky enough to have fleets that bring along a bunch of freighters to provide refueling still run out of fuel while in siege mode.
3. While attacking they burn through the fuel fast enough that they need freighters coming in from their base of supply on a constant basis to resupply the capitol ships as if they don't get their fuel they become sitting ducks.
4. This means that if enemies get in between a fleet and its source of fuel, the capitol ships' fuel can be interdicted.
5. This means that in order to keep the fuel flowing to a capitol fleet, an attacking alliance would have to guard their fleets flanks and rear in order to keep the fuel flowing.
6. Gangs that are doing that aren't in the main blob.
7. So the blob gets smaller.

Am I on the right track here, or is there something I'm missing?

[ajax34i]

There's no collision in EVE and unlike RL where you can definitely detect and intercept a moving force that's trying to get anywhere, you can't do so in EVE; ships in warp will get past your supposed front lines, and jump drives allow a fleet to jump several systems behind you instantaneously.  In addition, when two forces meet, either can run away unless steps are taken to actively jam / scramble all avenues for running away.

There's also no death/destruction like in RL, where blowing up tanks and ships doesn't mean the people inside will just reappear and drive replacement tanks / ships to the fight scene within 10 minutes.

Finally, why?  There have been hundreds of suggestions to change the way the game is, and bottom line, it hasn't changed and the current player base (and the devs) seem to like it the way it is.

[Simond]

The cause of blobbing is POS warfare. The only sane way to run an extended POS war is dread fleets. However, a dread in siege is vulnerable to sudden counterattacks, therefore a smart FC will minimize the length of time his capital fleet is in siege.

At the moment, the only way to do that is to bring more dreads - what will take one dread 24 hours will take two 12hrs, four 6hrs, and so on. Of course, the dreads will need a support fleet and the more dreads, the bigger that fleet.

Naturally, the opponant will try to counter this and will bring at least an equal sized force...and more if he can arrange it.

Suddenly, you've got thirty dreads in siege, thirty other capitals, a 150 ship support fleet and a T2 kitchen sink on one side, and fifty dreads, thirty carriers, three motherships, a titan, 75 HACs, 75 BS, 20 intderdictors & a Officer-named partridge in a pear tree on the other. Plus assorted drones, fighters, pods, anchored bubbles, wrecks, GSCs full of ammo, very lost macrominers, and random passersby.

CCP keep trying to fix the symptoms, not the cause.

[ajax34i]

And the cause is because the only way to do warfare in a system where you're invulnerable and undetectable while in transit is to set up bases of operation and defend them.  Look at the Star Wars universe, too; an enemy can hyper in to any planet, and the only way to "defend" a territory is to be able to hyper in your own navy to defend it, plus have strong planetary defenses.

The way the POSes are set up, and the dreads required to take them down, etc., that's basically the best possible solution to the effects that this warping and jumpgate travel have had on the game.  Front lines are meaningless; it's a game of fortified bases and rapid response / deployment.

[Hellinar]

I was surprised that the new constellation sovereignty doesn't force you to attack all bases in a constellation simultaneously to have a chance of success. If ships can jump around through warp gates, couldn't bases reinforce each other through warp tunnels or something? That would at least spread the blob out a bit.

CCP should have built some basic physics into the universe that discouraged big fleets. Warp fields being pretty much magical from our current point of view, they could have given them some "instabilities" that made massive fleet operations undesirable.

[ajax34i]

Or AoE weapons 100 KM explosion radius.

The thing with the blob lag is, part of it is client lag, but a big part of it is the node on which the entire solar system resides not being able to handle the load.  Jita is laggy around the stations where everyone sits, but Jita is also laggy everywhere else too.

And you can't force players to disperse if they don't want to.  Attacking one base means dealing with only the defenses of one base, so even if they reinforce each other with shields and capacitor etc., it's probably still the most effective way to bring them down, just attack one until you suck out the shields of every base in the system, then go take them out one by one.

[Morat20]

Or AoE weapons 100 KM explosion radius.

THose would be the new bombs -- fired from stealth bombers. Expensive, but I expect to see more of that.

[Krakrok]

One solution might be multiple players per ship but EVE isn't that kind of game. One player per high slot and make the guns twitch.

[Yegolev]

Simond, you left off ISD reporters.  Otherwise, good list.

[Fordel]

As long as "teams" in the game number in the thousands, you are never going to get rid of blobs. Even if you made everything else equal, SkillPoints, resources, cash, ability etc... nothing is going to deter "hay Joe, we are going to kick some ass tonight, wanna come?".

People want to participate, the more people, the more participation. /shrug

[JoeTF]

At the moment, the only way to do that is to bring more dreads - what will take one dread 24 hours will take two 12hrs, four 6hrs, and so on.

That is the heart of the problem. I would like to remind you gentlemen that blobs existed even before POS (not to mention cap ships) were introduced. As long as increasing numbers cause linear increase in firepower, blobbing isn't going to stop. You would need something that would make blobbing up actually lower the effective power of your gang(s), nothing else will help.

[Fordel]

You would need something that would make blobbing up actually lower the effective power of your gang(s), nothing else will help.

This is probably very bad in the long run though. "Sorry Joe, you can't come along we already have X people for the op". Not being able to be included in play gets people unsubscribed very fast.

[Belce]

Imagine loosing a POS because you couldn't bring everyone that wanted to come along to help defend. 

One of the troubles here is that it is desireable to have large groups of people work together in games like this.  If you limit the numbers that can attack a POS in one location and force them around to others at the sametime you could be seen as favouring one side in the fight because of difference in S&T used, one side uses lots of little ships compared to a side that is big ship themed.  One of those sides will of course see the change as determental to their way of doing things, forcing them to fight in the way of the otherside. 

[Daztur]

[Sir Bruce]

There's no collision in EVE and unlike RL where you can definitely detect and intercept a moving force that's trying to get anywhere

What about gate camps?

There's also no death/destruction like in RL, where blowing up tanks and ships doesn't mean the people inside will just reappear and drive replacement tanks / ships to the fight scene within 10 minutes.

Well there's a limited supply of Titans :)

Finally, why?  There have been hundreds of suggestions to change the way the game is, and bottom line, it hasn't changed and the current player base (and the devs) seem to like it the way it is.

From what I've heard the lag in fleet battles is something of an inconvenience.

The cause of blobbing is POS warfare. The only sane way to run an extended POS war is dread fleets.

Right and unless I misunderstand things there's reason for those dread fleet to try to avoid an enemy getting between them and their home base. If an enemy getting in between a dread fleet and their home base was a VERY BAD THING then blogs would spread out a bit into a few different system to cover their flanks. At least I think they would.

CCP keep trying to fix the symptoms, not the cause.

Right.

Look at the Star Wars universe, too; an enemy can hyper in to any planet, and the only way to "defend" a territory is to be able to hyper in your own navy to defend it, plus have strong planetary defenses.

And in that sort of tactical environment there's no reason no to bring all the forces you can to any given battle. This result servers dieing.

Or AoE weapons 100 KM explosion radius.

Isn't that basically Titans? Titans don't seem to have solved anything...

but Jita is also laggy everywhere else too.

An idea situation would make it desirable for players to split up their forces between different systems in order to guard their flanks.

And you can't force players to disperse if they don't want to.

But you can make it advantageous for them to do so. In WW I the armies formed spread out front lines instead of massed armies because it was advantageous not because someone was forcing them.

As long as "teams" in the game number in the thousands, you are never going to get rid of blobs.

Real life armies in the World Wars numbered in the millions and they formed spread out front lines instead of blobbed armies. If anyone in the World Wars had blobbed their armies they would have been outflanked, cut off from their supplies and annihilated. Its the lack of a logistics system in Eve that causes blobbing.

As long as increasing numbers cause linear increase in firepower, blobbing isn't going to stop.

Unless getting outflanked is a very bad thing, which is not the case in any MMORPG that I know of.

nothing else will help.

Why?

[/Sir Bruce]

[Righ]

If the German forces had all been in Arras, and Vimy and Bullecourt were undefended, the latter towns could have been easily taken. The Germans would not have been able to quickly warp their artillery and soldiers inside the time taken to capture the towns. Not so in Eve. If you put all your forces in one place, and the enemy splits its strength and tries to capture positions you are not defending, you can just warp to another area and eliminate their weaker forces before they have a time to gain anything. With long capture times and short travel times, there is no advantage to splitting your forces. The differences are not actually related to supply lines at all.

[Daztur]

With long capture times and short travel times, there is no advantage to splitting your forces. The differences are not actually related to supply lines at all.

I don't think that its either or. I expect that if the speed of capital ships were slowed waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down (for example saying that they're too big to warp properly) or if a logistics system were implemented forcing people to guard their flanks, either would kill off blobs. The problem is the CCP is doing neither.

To keep on going with the Hitler example, if Hitler had a shitload of 100 mph tanks he still wouldn't have wanted to put them all in one big blob and head of Moscow because the Ruskies would've come around on either side of the tanks and then behind them, cutting off their supply of gas and tanks without gas aren't worth much.

[Simond]

The best technical fixes would be for CCP to change their server codes so that you could have more than one node per system (which is the current limit), and have the server farm do dynamic load balancing (rather than the manual "Lol, an overloaded node crashed and wiped out half a dozen systems. Better change the busiest one to a dedicated node").

It's a fundamental limitation of their server code - take a look at Jita, for example. That has one node permanently dedicated to it and it still runs like treacle in December. Now if they could split the system up into multiple nodes (one for 4-4, one for the rest of 4-*, etc), things might go a little better.

[Righ]

To keep on going with the Hitler example, if Hitler had a shitload of 100 mph tanks he still wouldn't have wanted to put them all in one big blob and head of Moscow because the Ruskies would've come around on either side of the tanks and then behind them, cutting off their supply of gas and tanks without gas aren't worth much.

Dammit man, I gave you a WW I reference and you go and change to Hitler?

[Merusk]

Flanking isn't a good analogy, because there is no flanking in space, Khaan.  The issue of supply lines is a better problem, but without an actual fuel source used by all ships (which would force carriers to actually carry ships so they could refuel) it's pointless.

There's several things 'wrong' with why blobs are the best method for EvE fighting.  The least of which is LOS Fire and Friendly Fire, both of which would tear-apart blobs as they currently exsist 'in reality.'   

For all it does differently, the Diku combat mechanics of EvE are the reason for blobbing.  You're NEVER going to fix it without radically altering those fundamentals.

[Endie]

I really don't see why you would want to take the radically-different combat of Eve and force it to conform to some historical version of limited-manuever warfare.

If you really feel that way inclined, I suspect Mycenean-era warfare, with isolated palace-cities and island statelets as star systems, naval movement essential and hard to interrupt away from shore, and no semblance of contiguous or continuous "lines" might be a slight and basic parallel.  Fuck all that WW2 discovery channel shit.

Eve is different, presents different tactical, logistical and strategic issues.  That's novel.  Why straitjacket it?

And Joe presents the best idea, I suspect: make the effect of growing fleet sizes asymtotic or even have it decline in effectiveness beyond a certain size.  Fordel's concern about exclusion of players is valid, but in Eve warfare there are plenty of things to do, plenty of tasks to perform.  we only tend to cluster at one or another task because the game mechanics currently reward such behaviour.  As has been shown in the Goon-Bob fights in the last couple of weeks, drawing your opponent into one system then hitting him with another force in two different places is far more effective than piling into his capital shipyard system and hoping CCP han't pre-gimped you with a login limit (or, conversely, that you won't be lagged and wiped out by the arriving swarm).

[Morat20]

The best technical fixes would be for CCP to change their server codes so that you could have more than one node per system (which is the current limit), and have the server farm do dynamic load balancing (rather than the manual "Lol, an overloaded node crashed and wiped out half a dozen systems. Better change the busiest one to a dedicated node").

It's a fundamental limitation of their server code - take a look at Jita, for example. That has one node permanently dedicated to it and it still runs like treacle in December. Now if they could split the system up into multiple nodes (one for 4-4, one for the rest of 4-*, etc), things might go a little better.

They really, really, really are resistant to splitting systems. They designed from the beginning with that limitation in mind, and I shudder to think of the work it would take to change it.

[Merusk]

I really don't see why you would want to take the radically-different combat of Eve and force it to conform to some historical version of limited-manuever warfare.

You wouldn't any more than you'd want to start telling a portion of your crew, "Sorry dude, we're at optimal effectiveness.  Stay away because you'd just gimp our size: effectiveness ratio."   

One's a game play limitation and one's a meta gaming limitation, granted, but they're both "straightjacketing" your players.

[dwindlehop]

They really, really, really are resistant to splitting systems. They designed from the beginning with that limitation in mind, and I shudder to think of the work it would take to change it.

A recent dev chat stated they are working on this. They are also upgrading their server architecture from  message passing through TCP/IP over ethernet to some standard cluster computing protocol (don't think they used name) to Infiniband or Myrinet, which will enable the low-cost message passing that makes a single system on multiple nodes possible.
http://ccp.vo.llnwd.net/o2/devblog/livedevblog1-pp.mp3 (about 17 minutes in)
Transcripts (gets some words wrong)
http://www.scrapheap-challenge.com/viewtopic.php?p=111070#111070
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=510759

[Morat20]

A recent dev chat stated they are working on this. They are also upgrading their server architecture from  message passing through TCP/IP over ethernet to some standard cluster computing protocol (don't think they used name) to Infiniband or Myrinet, which will enable the low-cost message passing that makes a single system on multiple nodes possible.
http://ccp.vo.llnwd.net/o2/devblog/livedevblog1-pp.mp3 (about 17 minutes in)
Transcripts (gets some words wrong)
http://www.scrapheap-challenge.com/viewtopic.php?p=111070#111070
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=510759

Are they doing that to move to multi-threading Solar Systems server-side (basically running, say, Jita on 2+ nodes) -- or are they trying to fragment off server-side operations -- perhaps allow for Jita DB needs to be threaded to supporting nodes, while Jita proper (collision, combat, etc) runs single-threaded?

[dwindlehop]

I haven't read anything that stated how it would be done. My naive guess is that Jita (or F-T) would be split up by grids and stations and warping and docking would initiate handoff to another node.

I do not think they admitted to looking into dynamic node allocation, unfortunately. Still, if all the major battlegrounds have a bunch of nodes working them, it'll be a happier situation.

[Morat20]

I haven't read anything that stated how it would be done. My naive guess is that Jita (or F-T) would be split up by grids and stations and warping and docking would initiate handoff to another node.

I do not think they admitted to looking into dynamic node allocation, unfortunately. Still, if all the major battlegrounds have a bunch of nodes working them, it'll be a happier situation.

Their primary roadblock, as I understand it, was that server synchronization was handled by using a no more than one node per System (with a node capable of handling multiple systems, synch was in for that). So if you start breaking up Jita onto multiple servers, you start creating boundary lines -- with all the potentials for exploits that causes -- plus CCP now has to rewrite everything to handle actions across zone lines, because you can bet your ass if they just "assume" no one will ever fight on some zone line in the middle of nowhere that people will start dragging battles out there.

It might be interesting to see if they can effectively instance a POS fight, but triggering a handoff to a seperate node for a POS (or moon, whatnot) whenever ship density hits a certain amount. Everyone after would jump into the instance, at least allieviating lag for everyone else in the area who isn't seiging or defending.

[Simond]

The fact that they're actively considering it is a major step forwards.

[Viin]

If I had a CS degree this would be a kick-ass real-life issue to solve. Talk about putting hardware/software/etc to extreme use. (*And* get paid for it).

[dwindlehop]

IANA(CS major), but I am a computer engineer. Devs who decompose problems into work queues which any available processing element can execute in isolation appreciate threading. Devs with shared data structures are sad pandas. When threading existing code, it is easier to share your existing data structures across threads, though. Dunno how much effort is going into the engine rewrite, so I wouldn't lay any bets on which approach they'd take.

I do think they could get away with the naive approach above, though. If I fly my fleet to some deep safe on a zone boundary, informed enemies simply won't engage. They'll take my POS or station services instead.     

The other good news is new hardware by the end of the year.

[Daztur]

I really don't see why you would want to take the radically-different combat of Eve and force it to conform to some historical version of limited-manuever warfare.

Because the alternative is insane lag every big battle?

If you really feel that way inclined, I suspect Mycenean-era warfare, with isolated palace-cities and island statelets as star systems, naval movement essential and hard to interrupt away from shore, and no semblance of contiguous or continuous "lines" might be a slight and basic parallel.

You'd only get that sort of warfare if you made travel (or at least capitol ship travel) much much slower. Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing...

But looking at history is a good way of figuring out how warfare works and Eve conforms to real history much closer than other MMORPGs since the supply of big ships isn't infinite like the supply of characters is in other games.

[Endie]

If you really feel that way inclined, I suspect Mycenean-era warfare, with isolated palace-cities and island statelets as star systems, naval movement essential and hard to interrupt away from shore, and no semblance of contiguous or continuous "lines" might be a slight and basic parallel.

You'd only get that sort of warfare if you made travel (or at least capitol ship travel) much much slower. Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing...

But looking at history is a good way of figuring out how warfare works and Eve conforms to real history much closer than other MMORPGs since the supply of big ships isn't infinite like the supply of characters is in other games.

No, I wasn't saying that's what it should be like.  I meant that's already the closest parallel to what goes on in 0.0.  Especially that most famous of incidents of Mycenean warfare - Troy - being a good example: head to a key place; sit there for years plinking away ineffectualy and occasionally squabbling violently; opposition eventually collapses through logistics fuckup and insertion of agents; loot; grand alliance promptly and merrily collapses into free-for-all fighting.  The situation in the south is more like Orchomenos and Thebes, of course.

Stront, ice products and more: those already impose limits on both sieges and movement.  Logistics and space control matter.  Long range raiding through enemy rear areas is important, after the style of Nathan Bedford Forrest.  Ammo supplies are also a key item: we had to force through convoys in order to keep blowing up bob POSes in 9-9 last night.  Of course, now we have big stockpiles 

[Hellinar]

You wouldn't any more than you'd want to start telling a portion of your crew, "Sorry dude, we're at optimal effectiveness.  Stay away because you'd just gimp our size: effectiveness ratio."   

Yep. You would have to combine minimizing the blob in one system with strong incentives for the surplus dudes to fight in another system. Which is where constellation sovereignty comes in. Maybe add devices in one system that reinforce defences in other systems, unless they themselves are under attack. A bit artificial, but it would give an  incentive to attack several systems in parallel. So all your dudes are fighting, just not all in the same system. Its tricky to do though, because you also need to make sure the defenders get an advantage from defending systems that aren't directly under attack.

[Krakrok]

I think multizoning a system would be pretty easy considering current game technology. It would just be instancing after all. Each planet would be it's own instance. UO had seamless zoning 10 years ago. Granted it lagged like shit when you crossed the zone line (because it had to copy thousands of items from bank to bank) but in EVE you're most likely going to be crossing the zone line while in warp which is as effective as a blind turn in EQ.

Just put the ships into cloak while they are crossing the zone line. EVE already takes you into an instance via missions and they are planning on converting asteroid belts to instances so I don't see the big deal.

[Morat20]

I think multizoning a system would be pretty easy considering current game technology. It would just be instancing after all. Each planet would be it's own instance. UO had seamless zoning 10 years ago. Granted it lagged like shit when you crossed the zone line (because it had to copy thousands of items from bank to bank) but in EVE you're most likely going to be crossing the zone line while in warp which is as effective as a blind turn in EQ.

Just put the ships into cloak while they are crossing the zone line. EVE already takes you into an instance via missions and they are planning on converting asteroid belts to instances so I don't see the big deal.

Mostly exploit potential and synch issues in combat near zone lines -- however, their changes over the last year+ show they're slowly working the issue. The main problem is once they zone a solar system -- you'll still have 200v200 blobs (or however many it takes to start lagging it) running on a single node. It just means the poor saps shopping two moons away aren't lagged by the battle, which is at least something.

[Murgos]

I just wanted to point out that the original post is incorrect in assuming the lines of WWI were caused by needing to protect your flanks.  They were caused because it became EASY to protect your flanks.  With the machine gun.  As soon as a good counter to the machine gun appeared (the tank) trench warfare ceased to exist.  If you want to see solid defensive lines to form in Eve then there has to be a way to create a solid defense.  I.E. and easy method of establishing an effective defense.

That means that the enemy cannot just appear in your back yard at random, at least not without facing complete obliteration, and that any arbitrary system on the line can be made to rebuff any arbitrarily large attack.

Personally, I doubt if trench warfare is the model Eve developers should be seeking to emulate.  It would be stagnant and tedious with gains eked out at great loss and battles mostly determined by attrition.  Trench warfare is probably the least interesting model the devs could be aiming for.  A better model might be the battles of the pacific in WWII but that would require there be a strategic reason why certain systems would have to be held over others.