Stellaris Dev Diary #96: Doomstacks and Ship Design
- Thread starter Wizzington
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@Wiz
Will there be any negative modifier for concentrating most of your fleets in a single system? Because while i understand that huge battles are a great idea and "must-be" in a war, I'm afraid that this changes will do nothing, while they're great, I'm afriad that players and AI will simply stack all of it's fleets into one doomstack and move witch it around enemy systems, crushing any defense and forcing player to do the same, which will be all over one battle war again
Will there be any negative modifier for concentrating most of your fleets in a single system? Because while i understand that huge battles are a great idea and "must-be" in a war, I'm afraid that this changes will do nothing, while they're great, I'm afriad that players and AI will simply stack all of it's fleets into one doomstack and move witch it around enemy systems, crushing any defense and forcing player to do the same, which will be all over one battle war again
Why not? Because it is a game does not mean it should OR shouldn't in and of itself. The game can have whatever they decide it has. why should there be any ship capacity limit at all? Because that's how they've designed the game and how they feel the game will bring about the best possible experience. They feel that there is too little need for admirals currently and have highlighted this as a first step in changing this. There is your reason right there, you may or may not agree with it but if you want to argue against it you need to provide more reason than there's no reason why it should exist.
If you believe an admiral can control an endlessly sized fleet then go crazy with that belief. Honestly to me it's only logical that there is a limit to this. At some point, something's going to give, whether it be a thousand ships, a million ships, a billion ships, the admiral cannot command them all with equal efficiency. I think the real problem for you is the hard cap and that a soft cap with scaling penalties will make more sense to you. But this is ultimately a question of balance once again and pretty much all of this is irrelevant to the fact that they are free to make the changes that they believe will make stellaris a better game regardless of what you personally believe with respect to how many ships an admiral can command.
Love the changes. Now you just need to fix armies and invasions 
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Back on topic though, I do have a possible suggestion. I was thinking it might be best for the larger fleets attack speed penalty to lessen the longer a battle lasts, simulating the ships spreading out as they settle into a long fight. This, I think would help give a sense of urgency to the smaller fleet to try to inflict as much damage as it can before escaping. And building off of that, make it so fleets have a reduced wait for emergency ftl while in your own borders. Allowing you to run guerrilla attacks on a superior invading force in hopes to bog them down in a war of attrition.
I believe this, combined with your incoming changes to war score and war weariness, could make for some interesting gameplay.
.Back on topic though, I do have a possible suggestion. I was thinking it might be best for the larger fleets attack speed penalty to lessen the longer a battle lasts, simulating the ships spreading out as they settle into a long fight. This, I think would help give a sense of urgency to the smaller fleet to try to inflict as much damage as it can before escaping. And building off of that, make it so fleets have a reduced wait for emergency ftl while in your own borders. Allowing you to run guerrilla attacks on a superior invading force in hopes to bog them down in a war of attrition.
I believe this, combined with your incoming changes to war score and war weariness, could make for some interesting gameplay.
Nothing specifically about formations yet, but the new combat computers will let you set how far off the ships will engage, which might lead to some formations in battle itself, though we'll have to wait to see on that one. Either way though actual formation controls would be cool so we'll keep our fingers crossed!
I'd like to throw in a differing opinion. Not really a fan of soft limits because in the current version it's one of my problems with combat. In live I can't really predict how much of a fleet my opponent will ever throw at me because *energy* is the main factor determining how large a fleet can be. It took far too many games for me to figure out that no matter how much I boosted fleet cap however I could it didn't matter because the AI always went over their fleet cap and invested so heavily in energy to compensate.
I'm aware of this now but at the same time it's hard to fight against other than just constantly boosting energy limits and putting everything into building ships hoping I've managed to have more energy than my opponent.
I know with the changes to starbases and everything else this could play out much differently but I'd still prefer to be able to look at my fleet cap and estimate whether or not I'm about to be outclassed. This way I have a clear way to try to match my opponent. Not guesswork on their economy versus my own.
I was thinking maybe having some kind of mechanics to encourage multi-fleet strategy, like having bonus damage when flanking an enemy fleet or some kind of temporary looting of enemy resources by sending small harassment fleets.
You´re still encouraged to put as many ships in one place as possible, but divided into smaller fleets.
I find this system interesting, but I don´t see how that impacts anyone´s choices about how many ships should be in a fleet, at any time.
This one affects you and your enemy equally, so I don´t think it makes any difference regarding the doomstacks per se.
You can still make an unlimited number of fleets (and this, ships) follw your primary one, so it is still a doomstack, except that it occupies more space in your "fleets" tab and requires more cliking.
I appreciate the thought you put into your answers. It was refreshing.
Very questionable:
The disengage system? Also works for the Doomstack owner, so he can just replace some of the damaged fleets form the primary one and send them home with one of the following fleets.
As for the loser of the engagement? He still lost more ships and almost certainly can´t compete with the doomstack owner capacity to replace said losses.
But I fully agree with what you have just said (specially the part I boldened; I have said pretty much the same to another poster in an earlier message in this thread)
What I disagree here, is that the announced changes have solved, in any way, the doomstack problem. I can still put all my ships into one place and send them as one against the enemy: I just need more clicks and more occupied space in my "Fleets" tab.
P.S: to whomever is reading; I need to go to a few medical examinations in abut 1 hour, and then take care of some work. I will answer to all quotes and questions later at night, when I come back. Until then.
So first off thanks for the great Dev Diary and for the work and attention to address issues with combat! I'm very much looking forward to it.
My concern is that I really don't think these changes incentivize the player to disperse their forces or provide an effective penalty for concentration of forces. You're simply encouraging players to change their one huge doomstack into a collection of smaller fleets operating in a group. You're putting limits on individual fleet sizes as part of curtailing doomstacks. I get this also limits the bonuses you receive from Admirals. But why wouldn't a player just use X number of smaller fleets instead of one gigantic fleet and move them all around together (which you are also making it easier to do)? I get that the net combat effectiveness of X smaller fleets is going to be less than one big fleet due to not all of them having admirals. But ultimately a player can still bring a huge amount of concentrated firepower to bear in one place - a doomstack effectively. Why go up against that and lose, even if you'll do more damage now while losing?
I still would like to see a logistics system created that penalizes you for having over a certain amount of ships in a system - maybe by increased maintenance costs - and where that threshold changes based on how far you are from your borders or starbases. That I think is an effective way to force players to disperse their military.
I understand that the proposed changes are not intended to completely cure the doomstack/force concentration problem. My concern is that even with that in mind I don't think these penalties are sufficiently effective even as mitigation.
My concern is that I really don't think these changes incentivize the player to disperse their forces or provide an effective penalty for concentration of forces. You're simply encouraging players to change their one huge doomstack into a collection of smaller fleets operating in a group. You're putting limits on individual fleet sizes as part of curtailing doomstacks. I get this also limits the bonuses you receive from Admirals. But why wouldn't a player just use X number of smaller fleets instead of one gigantic fleet and move them all around together (which you are also making it easier to do)? I get that the net combat effectiveness of X smaller fleets is going to be less than one big fleet due to not all of them having admirals. But ultimately a player can still bring a huge amount of concentrated firepower to bear in one place - a doomstack effectively. Why go up against that and lose, even if you'll do more damage now while losing?
I still would like to see a logistics system created that penalizes you for having over a certain amount of ships in a system - maybe by increased maintenance costs - and where that threshold changes based on how far you are from your borders or starbases. That I think is an effective way to force players to disperse their military.
I understand that the proposed changes are not intended to completely cure the doomstack/force concentration problem. My concern is that even with that in mind I don't think these penalties are sufficiently effective even as mitigation.
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We have to remember the changes to starbases as well. Starbases will now be on par with fleets. If an attacker takes enough losses in a fleet versus fleet engagement then he still might not be able to take the system because his ships will be too damaged to take on the starbase controlling said system. This gives the defender time to repair and rearm. Even if they lose that system then there's always another starbase waiting.
Depends on how small of a fleet... But if enough to actually capture the starbase, then it's a very viable tactic if you heavily outnumber the enemy. Attacking an undefended starbase is a hell of a lot better than attacking one guarded by a buffed fleet.
And how have they solved Doomstacks? They havent, you cant really fully "solve" the doom stack problem. You can only mitigate it. Which is what exactly they have done. You will still generally lose against an overwhelming force. But now you can make this win very expensive for them and possibly reduce your own losses.
Defense in Depth was also confirmed to affect stations in friendly territory ( I know I needed that one explained to me as well)
Assigning work to volunteers over several days is a bit different than to direct a battle.
There is a limit how much information a person can process. At some point you have to delegate as otherwise the danger is there you forget entire ships/battle groups. Even Napoleon forgot to give orders to two entire regiments during Austerlitz.
Not to mention a single head makes you vulnerable to jamming. So you have to delegate. But to make sure subcommander A does not decide to retreat through the corridor subcommander B wants to use for a torpedo run. So you need more guys to coordinate them and keep the superiors informed about important things while filtering out unimportant ones. All that under high stress in a 3D environment most races would not be adapted to think in.
At some point the delays in the command chain become unacceptable. Thats your cap.
With better training and better technology (AI supported information filtering, holographic 3D maps, direct brain interface) more and more forces can be managed without the control chain spiraling out of control.
Dont forget that you are not commanding individual people but entire ships. A single soldier without orders can decide reasonably well on his own. A ship captain "doing his thing" is more likely to throw the entire formation into disarray.
Attacking dedicated shipyards is definitely more likely in the update since a dedicated shipyard won't be near as defended as say a Citadel upgraded for defense. Losing shipyards will probably hurt a lot. Especially if you can bleed the attacker in your territory with your own defenses.
Remember as well though that the new starbase system means you can have multiple shipyards on the new starbases as well as defences.
Take the theoretical scenario from before - you lose and then retreat, but you've reduced their numbers a little due to the new small fleet modifier. The enemy will destroy your outpost in the system you just lost in. While they do that, you can be building and replenishing ships from the starbase you've just retreated to. When the enemy comes for you, you have more forces than before, and are on much more equal footing (especially if your starbase also has some defences on there.) You'd still probably lose, but the enemy fleet may not have the strength to continue into your territory.
At least, that's how I understand the new mechanic. Doomstacks are still viable, but just not THE tactic.
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How would FDB adress the specialisation exploit? Many times, a 'weaker' fleet is actually stronger... All the FDB will do is endorse specializations.... And i suppose the way to fix it would be to reduce the ship designer options. So that no matter what you pick it wont matter....
Am I right in assuming two fleets engaging a single one with double the number of ships of each will get a 50% bonus, even if the total number of ships in battle is the same for both sides?
I wonder how the AI will deal with this. Instead of one half a million fleet strength Awakened Empire fleet murdering the Galaxy, will we now see three fleets jump into the system: Two with admirals for 100k each and a third fleet of 300k with no admiral? Or, perhaps, will they actually fight wars and attack in multiple places with smaller fleets?
Inquiring minds want to know, Wiz!
Inquiring minds want to know, Wiz!