Stellaris Dev Diary #124 - Planetary Rework (part 4 of 4)

[WhapXI]

Another interesting idea is that each planet is a polyhedron object with each facet have neighbouring facets. ...

This entire idea sounds ridiculous. That’s a silly level of minutae to add to a game that is explicitly moving away from directly presenting a planet’s surface. It sounds like you’re suggesting adding stripped down versions of cities skylines and surviving mars to planet management and hearts of iron to planetary invasions. Le Guin is as much about performance updates as it is about abstraction. Your ideas sound performance intensive as heck, in aid of removing levels of abstraction. Not to mention the massive task that adding a planetary logistics system into the game where none currently exists would be.

 

[Diettinger]

This entire idea sounds ridiculous. That’s a silly level of minutae to add to a game that is explicitly moving away from directly presenting a planet’s surface. It sounds like you’re suggesting adding stripped down versions of cities skylines and surviving mars to planet management and hearts of iron to planetary invasions. Le Guin is as much about performance updates as it is about abstraction. Your ideas sound performance intensive as heck, in aid of removing levels of abstraction. Not to mention the massive task that adding a planetary logistics system into the game where none currently exists would be.

Yes... It is a move away from abstract. What it does is align the space based and ground based military play styles by adding a ground based strategy approach which becomes nearly identical to the existing space based approach, including choke points (created by impassable terrain) and obstacles (tough terrain vs stars which make transit slower)
The polyhedra is just a graphical representation of the existing mapping structure used for system connections... so nothing tough either.
But the benefits... for those who like this level of detail... would be extensive.

 

[Zebak]

They would need to really add terrain to space battles first.. so fat you have terrain on the galactic scale, yet none on star scale - fleets near a star exchanging shots just move towards each other.. or if multiple fleets, flanking exists.

Such terrain would require a rescale to work - fleets are abstracted and portrayed as huge on the map - for a planet or star or asteroid field to become meaningful terrain the scale would need to change, plus that would add to the complexity ot it all.. something I doubt to be a direction they are considering.


...personally I would love a rework of ground combat, where the weapons and defense focus mean something (both ground and orbital bombing) like they mean something in fleet combat.. plus planetary-to-orbit guns.

 

[Diettinger]

Lots of people want a rework of ground combat... the issue is often more about what makes it work well enough to make people happy... but not go over the cliff.
I think what I am suggesting is a reasonable mix... and would be willing to provide the conceptual models myself.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, but most of the people who want a rework of ground combat want it to be less prominent and fiddly.

 

[Diettinger]

What I think they want is something which I have wanted for a long time and Stellaris was the first to do. The right mix.
Fleet management was a pain in a lot of game before Stellaris (unless someone had it earlier). With the fleet manager however Players could create a fleet template and it vastly simplified fleet building and maintenance.

The key: Much like the Fleet Manager and the Ship Designer, to be able to have a detailed build design system which can be used but then provides meaningful input into an abstract combat system.

A similar concept for ground based military formations would work well. Design different types of ground units and assemble them into armies based on the Army Manager. This would allow a lot of detail with reasonable administration.
For actual combat, the ground combat engine would simply compare the ground army features and work through the combat. Individual units would take their beatings and dish out their damage, and a post combat report would help players understand their weaknesses and strengths.
In the Army Manager simple variables could be set up. A formation would have a Firepower, Defence, and Speed/Manuever. Perhaps further characteristics for terrain specialty. Tanks in a tile (hate to use the word) with 30% swamp would have their Speed/Manuever reduced 30% +/- a small random factor; Hostile environments may make infantry upkeep increased and their Speed/Manuever reduced.
One of my favorite would be battlegroups within the army. If all units were in one battlegroup, the manuever of the battlegroup would be equal to the slowest unit. If a main battlegroup plus several recon battlegroups were set up, the manuever would be equal to the sum of their manuevers... but the recon groups may be engaged and destroyed individually.
Stances would be Static, Dig-In, Fortify, Manuever, and Strategic Manuever.
Combat would be based on a chance of engagement and a disengage calculation. Two opposing Recon Battlegroups may find each other and fight it out. Or a Main Combat Battlegroup might find a Recon Battlegroup, but since the Recon BG has a much higher manuever it would be able to disengage.

 

[Fjolsvid]

What I think they want is something which I have wanted for a long time and Stellaris was the first to do. The right mix.
Fleet management was a pain in a lot of game before Stellaris (unless someone had it earlier). With the fleet manager however Players could create a fleet template and it vastly simplified fleet building and maintenance.

The key: Much like the Fleet Manager and the Ship Designer, to be able to have a detailed build design system which can be used but then provides meaningful input into an abstract combat system.

A similar concept for ground based military formations would work well. Design different types of ground units and assemble them into armies based on the Army Manager. This would allow a lot of detail with reasonable administration.
For actual combat, the ground combat engine would simply compare the ground army features and work through the combat. Individual units would take their beatings and dish out their damage, and a post combat report would help players understand their weaknesses and strengths.
In the Army Manager simple variables could be set up. A formation would have a Firepower, Defence, and Speed/Manuever. Perhaps further characteristics for terrain specialty. Tanks in a tile (hate to use the word) with 30% swamp would have their Speed/Manuever reduced 30% +/- a small random factor; Hostile environments may make infantry upkeep increased and their Speed/Manuever reduced.
One of my favorite would be battlegroups within the army. If all units were in one battlegroup, the manuever of the battlegroup would be equal to the slowest unit. If a main battlegroup plus several recon battlegroups were set up, the manuever would be equal to the sum of their manuevers... but the recon groups may be engaged and destroyed individually.
Stances would be Static, Dig-In, Fortify, Manuever, and Strategic Manuever.
Combat would be based on a chance of engagement and a disengage calculation. Two opposing Recon Battlegroups may find each other and fight it out. Or a Main Combat Battlegroup might find a Recon Battlegroup, but since the Recon BG has a much higher manuever it would be able to disengage.

Still a bit too detailed to my liking.

From the PoV of technology advancement, there are quite a few techs that should heavily change the balance between attacker/defender depending on who has the techs in question.

All levels:
Weaponry advancement: Conventional-> laser, railgun -> plasma -> disruptor. Disruptor is the last upgrade, as it seems to be the most powerful weapon due to ignoring shields/armor.
Armor development - should increase hp of ground armies as the ability to withstand various weaponry increases.
robots, droids, synths, AI - advanced unit coordination improves tactical ability providing a bonus to "human" soldiers and automated "soldiers" for the drudgery and dangers of war.
Early to mid game techs:
Powered armor - basic development to both withstand and advance the deployment of newer powerful weaponry. Should be changed from also granting bonus mineral production to just a warfare tech which grants significant bonus hp to armies. If the economic bonus is really needed at this early stage of the game can also reduce maintenance costs for everything for buildings and armies by 5%
Cybernetic implants as a way to interface better with the various new tech, thus improving the body and the mind.
Personal shields - increases overall survivability, reduces maintenance as less overall repairs are needed after engagements. Shield strength (i.e the bonus) should improve as the tech improves. I imagine this would require at least Fusion reactors and Improved deflectors techs.
I also suggest adding "hard shields" tech that would allow shields to get back to being useful against disrutors in the end-game, thus making shield-tech relevant again. Side-commment: I stil very much like how shields would represent a significant improvement to the military, which then is cut-off by the inroduction of disruptors. And then with the hard-shields tech, it would shift the balance again, as those with the hard shields and disruptors will be at significant advantage against those with only disruptors.

Mid to late game:
With development of power sources highly mobile armor becomes available in the form of Battlesuits (like the ones Tau have in Wh40k) and Anti-grav vehicles. Both developments are game changers on a level of ground combat as tanks achieve a level of mobility enjoyed by slower aircrafts, while infantry becomes even more mobile and can carry increasingly powerful weaponry and can withstand a surprising level of firepower. Aircrafts become insanely maneuverable, fast and require less special deployment bases.
Could be locked to cold-fusion tech or even Anti-matter reactors.
Nanotechnology - cheaper and faster construction of equipment, unlocks higher level designs- i.e a big stat boost, medical techs which increase survivability (nano-infused blood, tissue reconstitution), nano-tech plagues for discriminate/indiscriminate warfare.
Genetic engineering - various base bonuses, plus creation of super-soldiers - which also unlocks the sociatal challange - do we improve the whole species to be better, including to be better soldiers or do we create soldiers to fight for us, thus enabling gene-boosted species to revolt if they are not integrated into the society.

This is a rough draft, but each of those techs allows to introduce points where balance can be easily swung to the side that has acqured the new tech.
I'm also not includung the nuclear option for ground warfare, though it should be available to the player and be rather devastating, considering there are anti-matter missiles/torpedoes in the game. As such, i think there should be a (self-)destruct option for the planet as the ultimate decision in planetary sieges, though yes it does make Colossi obsolete/unnecessary due to being equiivalent to a neutron sweep or world cracker.

 

[Zebak]

Quite agree with Diettinger. What I would like to see is having a choice, regarding troops, that matter and some itegration..

If there was a troop manager where you could choose a type of weapon and defense, you not only make a reflection of your tech into ground combat (similar to ship combat) but places the burden on the player to balance rock-paper combat and colateral damage (so far the only option that makes sense is unleashing gene-horrors causing lots os colateral damage.. all other troop tech is just a better version of the initial one).

The planet and a fortress building could count as terrain, adding a modifier (better disengage for defender, change damage taken by all due to open ground or rough terrain full of covers..).
The choice of hard armor vs energy shields vs light mobility against energy vs balistic vs missiles would mirror your choices for space combat - could unlock or be researched after each defensive II / weapon II tech and improove with each following tech.
Then itegrating things.. adding to the tiny troop transport, like techs that add to their defense, dodge and disengage. Maybe a 5-pack or 10-pack for troop training that instead go to space as a destroyer frame or cruiser. Or a frame and modules for corvettes for atmosferical entry, so to add some power to the attackers - and group with transports instead of main fleet, helping defend them vs the lone ship harassers - such corvettes could be countered with planetary defense and airspace bases (spawning aerofighters similar to fortress/troops).
Formations can be like fleet, you design them on a formation-manager and the ships spawned could be linked to size, so instead of a swarm of little transports, you could have bigger frames (reflecting your ship tech) grouping equal types of troops - or you could create an invasion fleet, with modules instead of weapons, saying how many troops they can carry, and being loaded when ordering embark to ground forces with this fleet in orbit - as a bonus, the invasion fleet would remain in orbit and help ground combat as well as having a chance of boing destroyed (forcing those troops to once again use the slow, flimsy, tiny transports to go back home / to the next traget)..

The combat itself would remain simple / abstract, being calculated by tick and shown as a simple overlay like it is done now, yet there would be more choice and strategy to assembly and use of ground troops other then just spamming the best soldier and swarming a planet.

 

[Mila34]

I've been thinking about the direction that ground combat could develop in the future and I agree that an army manager could go a long way towards making invasions a bit more interesting. I enjoyed the add-ons that you could give each army when stellaris first came out as it made me feel I could customise my forces in a personal way that fit my empire and playstyle, but the amount of effort it took to equip each and every army with an upgrade completely justified that mechanics removal. However, if an army manager was introduced and armies were a persistent concept beyond the units that made them up then an upgrade or two could be applied army wide and make each army feel personalised and unique.

I was also giving some thought to how ground combat could be made to have slightly more depth while not requiring constant oversight from the player, and hit upon the idea of having each invasion being a series of battles each fought over the control of each district on the planet. With an invasion going from one single pitched battle to a series of them room would be opened up for extra nuance between different types of ground unit. A defender focused on hit and run tactics might be able to wear an invader down as he slogs across several districts worth of battles, unable to rest and resupply as easily as the defender with his homefield advantage.

Experienced generals might be able to fight on multiple fronts, conducting battles for several districts simultaneously and forcing less experienced opponents to overreach themselves. This would make generals extremely valuable leaders to have, as they would not only make your armies stronger but they would also result in quicker victories.

The army manager and district based combat system would also allow greater variation in the types of units available. Fighting on a lush and open agri world might make a battalion of tanks or AT-AT style walkers more effective, but on a built-up ecumenopolis an army full of adaptable infantry might be a better bet. Studying an opponents worlds and building your armies accordingly the same way we do for opponent's navies would be a more engaging system than the ground combat system as it stands.

 

[Diettinger]

I've been thinking about the direction that ground combat could develop in the future and I agree that an army manager could go a long way towards making invasions a bit more interesting. I enjoyed the add-ons that you could give each army when stellaris first came out as it made me feel I could customise my forces in a personal way that fit my empire and playstyle, but the amount of effort it took to equip each and every army with an upgrade completely justified that mechanics removal. However, if an army manager was introduced and armies were a persistent concept beyond the units that made them up then an upgrade or two could be applied army wide and make each army feel personalised and unique.

I was also giving some thought to how ground combat could be made to have slightly more depth while not requiring constant oversight from the player, and hit upon the idea of having each invasion being a series of battles each fought over the control of each district on the planet. With an invasion going from one single pitched battle to a series of them room would be opened up for extra nuance between different types of ground unit. A defender focused on hit and run tactics might be able to wear an invader down as he slogs across several districts worth of battles, unable to rest and resupply as easily as the defender with his homefield advantage.

Experienced generals might be able to fight on multiple fronts, conducting battles for several districts simultaneously and forcing less experienced opponents to overreach themselves. This would make generals extremely valuable leaders to have, as they would not only make your armies stronger but they would also result in quicker victories.

The army manager and district based combat system would also allow greater variation in the types of units available. Fighting on a lush and open agri world might make a battalion of tanks or AT-AT style walkers more effective, but on a built-up ecumenopolis an army full of adaptable infantry might be a better bet. Studying an opponents worlds and building your armies accordingly the same way we do for opponent's navies would be a more engaging system than the ground combat system as it stands.

One other perk to using army managers and tile based combat would be spoiling raids.
A typical planet will have a few key tiles. The capital, the L2 Mineral Processing Centre, etc. Those will be heavily defended presumably.
With the army manager a player could design a raiding force to drop onto planets they could not expect to seize and simply damage it with the effect of reducing the opponents overall industry. With a more detailed planetary infrastructure and industry (Which I would love to propose) the effects could be even more profound. Imagine an arid world with a water treatment facility (proposed building Which changes arid to something wetter so I guess increases habitability). This strategic target would be a prime target for a raid.
A raider could, if they chose, lure the space fleet out of range with a distraction fleet and launch a second fleet with transports onto a planet with the specific purpose of wrecking what it could. Naturally the Capital and Mineral processing centre would be too heavily defended, but raiding and looting mines, farms, and labs could be lucretive.
Defending forces would need to either hold the line, or weaken the defence of critical locations to dispatch forces to deal with the Raiders.
I imagine a typical raid could last several 5 to 10 days.
This would, of course, be the most fun in multiplayer play, but entertaining in solo play too.

To make this work best of course the ranges of warships and star bases out to be cut down as would their speed... otherwise the window of the raid would be too small.

Just as a side note I have always intended to make a game like Stellaris with these types of features but given I work in banking and am pretty busy have never gotten to it. Since I found stellaris and how amazingly moddable it is I have been enraptured with the possibilities. Please feel free to approach me for thoughts and ideas as I have books of notes on concepts and the mechanics behind them... all thought through to add richness without adding too much micromanagement to a game.

 

[Diettinger]

One other perk to using army managers and tile based combat would be spoiling raids.
A typical planet will have a few key tiles. The capital, the L2 Mineral Processing Centre, etc. Those will be heavily defended presumably.
With the army manager a player could design a raiding force to drop onto planets they could not expect to seize and simply damage it with the effect of reducing the opponents overall industry. With a more detailed planetary infrastructure and industry (Which I would love to propose) the effects could be even more profound. Imagine an arid world with a water treatment facility (proposed building Which changes arid to something wetter so I guess increases habitability). This strategic target would be a prime target for a raid.
A raider could, if they chose, lure the space fleet out of range with a distraction fleet and launch a second fleet with transports onto a planet with the specific purpose of wrecking what it could. Naturally the Capital and Mineral processing centre would be too heavily defended, but raiding and looting mines, farms, and labs could be lucretive.
Defending forces would need to either hold the line, or weaken the defence of critical locations to dispatch forces to deal with the Raiders.
I imagine a typical raid could last several 5 to 10 days.
This would, of course, be the most fun in multiplayer play, but entertaining in solo play too.

To make this work best of course the ranges of warships and star bases out to be cut down as would their speed... otherwise the window of the raid would be too small.

Just as a side note I have always intended to make a game like Stellaris with these types of features but given I work in banking and am pretty busy have never gotten to it. Since I found stellaris and how amazingly moddable it is I have been enraptured with the possibilities. Please feel free to approach me for thoughts and ideas as I have books of notes on concepts and the mechanics behind them... all thought through to add richness without adding too much micromanagement to a game.

Sorry to be so wordy.
Also... if planetary 'tiles' were given percentages of different types of terrain it would add depth to outfitting troop types and what percentage of the tile is suitable for different types of use.
90% mountain would not be good for agriculture obviously, be largely impassable for military, but may be good still for mining or research.

 

[WhapXI]

Sorry to be so wordy.
Also... if planetary 'tiles' were given percentages of different types of terrain it would add depth to outfitting troop types and what percentage of the tile is suitable for different types of use.
90% mountain would not be good for agriculture obviously, be largely impassable for military, but may be good still for mining or research.

Again, to reiterate, Le Guin is abstracting planetary surfaces to better represent populations, demographics, migrations, etc. What you are asking for is a pretty massive overhaul to this overhaul to add in terrain-based rts elements.

It sounds like you should play a much more heavily war focussed game, or else wait for the inevitable ground combat rework, which while unlikely to consist of pretty much anything that you’re asking for, will doubtless be better than it currently is. You’re proposing an extremely complex ground combat system, which I feel the need to remind you has to run concurrently with the rest of empire management and potentially other ground combats. It sounds a lot like you’re suggesting playing HoI4 for every planetary invasion.

 

[Zebak]

The way the devs are going, they could go like I said, keeping combat simple while increasing complexity on the choice area - a troop or formation manager to adjust weapon and defense choices.. having a building or planet add a modifier as terrain bonus (for example, battling on a planet class you have no colony yet, giving the homeground terrain to defenders).. improoving the tiny transport (with maybe replacing the normal stance with a support stance to invading fleet orbital bombardment, for a combat bonus while still vulnerable in orbit)..

Maybe on a fitire rework they will go this way.. complex choices, simple gameplay.

 

[JeremytheJedi]

The changes to Hive Minds and Machine empires are great. It would be nice if you could abandon a colony as a hive mind and do selective purges.

Aside from the mechanic changes though, I think the habitat size modification is going to be problematic. Because habitats are viewed as planets, they exponentially increase the amount of research and unity needed for Perks and Techs. If the size is reduced, and there a lack of resource production, due to the reduced size, it becomes uneconomical to build habitats.

You'll substantially increase the requirements for technology and perks with no viable means offsetting the increase

 

[LeSingeAffame]

Habitats can produce a very good amount of research / energy given their size, they're quite worth it if you only focus on research

 

[Uskayaw]

Machine Empires
Machine Empires share some similarities with Hive Minds, but rather than being focused on rapid growth, their primary focus is efficient use of resources. Like the Hive Minds, they have their own version of housing district, the Nexus District, and their resource extraction districts also provide three jobs where normal empires get two, but in addition to this they also have substantial bonuses to finished goods production, with jobs such as the Fabricator being a more efficient and productive variant of the regular alloy-producing Metallurgist. However, this comes at the expense of being unable to naturally produce new pops, having to rely on costly Replicator jobs to construct new drones. Machine Empires are ideal for an empire that wants to be self-sustaining, and truly shine when they have access to numerous kinds of natural resources.

None of this changes made it into the game. Were they scrapped for something else, or just forgotten?
I mean, those 0.5 maintenance saved per district will not make machines less broken - because capped pop production is what really matters - but now it feels like their planetary building properties were just copypasted from normal empires.

 

[Diettinger]

The annoying clickfest and minutia are because of badly thought out user experience. They could be simply solved.
I would suggest a beta build which captures where players are spending their time and the clicks, and then start to revise those features.
For example: fleet design. My 2 generation old destroyers are now outclassed. In the ship design function, I redesign them as either an upgrade or an outright replacement.
In fleet manager i indicate the old design needs to be upgraded. Based on fleet priority (new item) each destroyer would be recalled, upgraded, and returned to its fleet. Or, the lowest priority fleet has its destroyers recalled, and the once those destroyers are upgraded they are sent to the highest priority fleet and on arrival that fleets destroyers are sent for upgrade. (Something like that)

Added features: fleet logistics and upgrade priority and war-footing.

Similar mechanisms could be added to armies, buildings, etc. It would also fit well with the AI which would prioritize fleets based on threat.

Planet governors: priority settings : minimize unemployment, or maximize happiness, or max production.