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Tamwin5

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Dec 3, 2017
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One of the biggest current issues with warfare in stellaris is doom stacking. There are no mechanics to prevent the massing of all your fleets, or many reasons to ever spread out forces before a war is all but won. This is bad, not just because it's boring, but because it means a weaker empire has very little recourse when at war with a superior foe, or when confronted with multiple foes. A supply system would limit the number of ships that could feasibly take part on a single front, allowing a small and weak empire to turtle, or battles between large federations/empires be fought across a wide swath of the galaxy, rather then just a single meeting of doom stacks. A supply system would also limit the range of ships, making cross galaxy ventures much harder... but still possible at risk and with the proper planning.

This idea I first saw in this thread, although it has significantly evolved since the initial concept that threat presented.

The base supply use per month, as well as the maximum stored supply, is dependent on ship size, as follows

Ship sizeSupply use per monthSupply per month per 10 naval capMaximum supply storedOperating time unsupported
Corvette10100505 months
Destroyer2512525010 months
Cruiser6015090015 months
Battleship1401752,00014.3 months
Titan/Colossus4002505,00012.5 months

Corvettes are the cheapest ship, supply wise, but also the ship with the least operating time. Cruisers have the longest operating time, while battleships have the highest supply usage relative to naval cap. This is intended to be a slight nerf against artillery battleships, while giving cruisers a niche in being the optimal “long range” ship. There would be ship components that deal with supply: a utility one giving max supply(50/150/400), and an augment giving +25% max supply. These would be rarely used, as it sacrifices fleet power for density or range. Still, having the option is important, especially for RP scenarios, and loading up a cruiser with supply modules could allow it to serve as a “tanker” for a fleet of strike corvettes in enemy territory.

If we take a fleet of 16 corvettes and 1 cruiser, if the cruiser has no supply increases it has an operating time of 7.7 months. While that might not seem like a lot, it's an increase of more than 50%, which is impressive for just a single ship. If the cruiser is fully geared for supply, it will have a storage of 3150 ((900 + 8*150)*1.5), giving a total operating time of nearly 18 months, more than 3 times the default.

All ships in a fleet pool their total supply and their supply expenditure, so you only need to worry about supply on a fleet-by-fleet basis. When a fleet gets down to 25% supply, it will give a "low supply" notification and alert, as well as having a visible icon or border when the fleet is selected. Reaching 10% supply will throw another warning alert, and the fleet will suffer -10% fire rate and -10% sublight speed. 0% supply will pop up a major warning similar to the out of resources or max war exhaustion reached, and give a massive penalty of -50% sublight speed, -50% fire rate, -50% weapons damage, and -50% disengagement chance. Running out of supply isn't an instant death sentence, but being caught even by a normally inferior force will lead to heavy losses... and with the reduced speed you'll be much easier to catch.

Supply is produced in a number of ways. Every outpost produces 10 supply monthly, with starbases producing 50 per level and shipyards producing 20 each. Every pop with military service enabled produces 1 supply, and every soldier job produces 4 supply (on top of the base 1). The main limit is the transfer of supply. Supply is stored in outposts and upgraded starbases, and the level of that outpost or starbase limits the amount of supply that can be transferred in or out. The connection between two adjacent starbases is determined by the higher throughput between them, but each starbase can only import from and export to one adjacent starbase at a time (two different connections). Gateways allow the connection to every other starbase with a gateway, but the connection is determined by the lower of the two throughputs. The movement of supply is done automatically, with the system first attempting to nullify any deficit in the system (caused by a fleet), then keep all starbases equal proportionately. A player can designate a starbase as a "staging ground", which will cause it to be focused as a destination of supply above other starbases. Buildings, modules, and even megastructures can effect storage and throughput as well.

NameProductionStorageThroughput
Outpost101,000200
Starport5010,000400
Starhold10020,000600
Star Fortress15030,000800
Citadel20040,0001,000
Shipyard+2000
Anchorage0+10,000+100
Naval Logistics Office00+200
Hyperlane Relay00Raises throughput of adjacent systems to be equal to this starbase (will chain).
Mega Shipyard+100/+200/+300+10,000/+20,000/+30,0000
Strategic Coordination Center00+100/+200/+300 global
Juggernaut20020,000+200

Due to how the fact that the connection between two starbases uses the higher number, it means that an anchorage can be placed directly behind a bastion to keep a fleet there at max supply, or a chain of [starbase - outpost - starbase - outpost - starbase] will maintain the full supply transfer of the starbases. Since hyperlane relays project the throughput of the starbase out one, the chain can instead be [starbase - outpost - outpost - outpost - starbase], making long transfer routes actually doable.

There will be five technologies, either in the physics or sociology tree, which increase the rate of supply transfer by 10%, so at max level the rate will be 1.5 times the numbers presented. There would also likely be techs which increase the supply storage of ships and starbases, and possibly some techs to reduce the supply usage of ships.

There are also several ways to decrease the amount of supply used by your ships. Being at peace, being docked at a starbase, and if the starbase docked at has a crew quarters all decrease the supply usage of a ship by 20%. This means that a ship actively fighting will be 2.5 times as much supply as it did docked in peace time. The main goal of this is that during peace an empire will have a supply surplus, and during war a supply deficit. As a war drags on to the point where supply caches are exhausted, fleets will be forced into docking at stations to keep from running out of supplies and becoming helpless. A war which drags on will lead to both sides unable to properly mount an offensive, and a status quo peace deal all but guaranteed. Obviously numbers would have to be balanced so this actually happens, and playtests done at varying levels of hyperlane density, habitable worlds, etc.

Overall I think this suggestion would make warfare much more interesting. The placement of anchorages now actually becomes important, rather than just being parked in some random system to get a black site over a planet or collect a 2 trade value deposit. Anchorages would also become important assets in war, as when a starbase is captured all the supply stored is lost, so sniping an enemy anchorage or losing your own, even if only temporarily, can drastically shorten the length of a war. The supply throughput limit would incentivize multiple fronts, but because ships do have internal supply, it would allow temporarily overloading a front to seek an advantage. Defensively, a fleet can be kept docked at a bastion and use the -40% supply to have a significant advantage in fleet power over an attacking force, requiring that that force go over the supply limit in order to match. If that fleet ever tried to go on the offensive or is forced to maneuver however, it suddenly will be draining supply. Early game a fleet of 20 corvettes can maneuver freely with only outposts as support, but as soon as that fleet expands or a second fleet is brought in it starts ticking down supply if they are kept on the same front. Fortress worlds, due to soldiers producing supply, would be incentivized to be stacked with bastions (currently, the opposite is generally better). I do worry that the AI might find this system hard to understand and thus hard to code competent AI for. I think it can be done, but I don't make AI so I'm really not the person to be judging that.
 
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I really like the different ideas you've shown and have as few additional things I'd like to add:
  1. I'm not sure whether this is intended but I think you're (excellent) system could replace the current upkeep system. I'd suggest each point of supply costing a certain amount of energy and alloys. This could then make supply feel more like a localised resource instead of a cap
  2. I love the use of the juggernaut as a mobile supply carrier, but I do wonder whether it would be excessively difficult to attack in some scenarios. For example in a federation moving your fleet through federation space would lose supplies making it difficult to attack. To stop this I'd suggest allowing the purchase of supplies from other countries in the diplomatic tab. This would likely be more costly, but also allow for more combined efforts. This would also not create fed wide doomstacks unless one member had enough supplies for everyone's ships.
  3. Also not sure whether this is part of your idea, but I don't think starbases captured in the war should be usable for supplies or should at least have a long cooldown. Otherwise I fear the entire point of the supply system to stop big empire's rolling through distant smaller empires would be redundant.
  4. On the ai I think it could work as long the supply collection is fairly automated. Then the ai could probably have weights for building anchorages etc based off closeness to hostile empires. The ai could probably also have a retreat mechanism which would trigger when fleets go below a certain percentage of supply forcing it to return to a starbases until largely full again. The final part which I'm not so sure about is making the ai target supply focused systems, but I'm sure that it's possible.
Honestly take or leave all of the above, I just absolutely love your idea.
 
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We have the resource capacity to run supplies to an entire world with possibly billions of lives living on it with possibly a huge range of different requirements. I don't think the small numbers onboard ships become an issue, especially with advanced robotics and such.
 
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We have the resource capacity to run supplies to an entire world with possibly billions of lives living on it with possibly a huge range of different requirements. I don't think the small numbers onboard ships become an issue, especially with advanced robotics and such.

This is very true however I think there are a few things to consider that make this post more logical:
  1. In military operations today supply lines are still important as ships, troops and tanks all require weaponry repair and ammunition
  2. The distances in stellaris are far greater and as such bringing even more supplies would be necessary.
  3. As military improves, as it clearly has in stellaris, the variety of weaponry and troops increases and therefore so do the supplies. This means that in stellaris weaponry like missiles, lasers and shields would all require constant repair and supplies
  4. There is already precedent for this in the game- upkeep. The only difference is the restrictions on where it can be collected which I believe the former reasons justify
 
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Even if this is exploited only by some mods (like Realistic Ships), vanilla costs and upkeeps seem to leave an unused ship size (or a "ship size and a half") between cruiser and battleship ship sizes. Proposed numbers could reflect this.
 
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I like the idea, but the numbers are completely off. Applying this to my current game would mean I couldn't even supply my size 600 alliance fleet with the supply production of my whole empire, let alone my own 13 size 230 fleets. Also your "Supply per month per 10 naval cap" column is off by a factor 100.

I think to balance the numbers a citadel should produce roughly enough supply for one endgame fleet of size 230/250. Also I miss gateways having an effect on supply throughput.
 
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I really like the different ideas you've shown and have as few additional things I'd like to add:
  1. I'm not sure whether this is intended but I think you're (excellent) system could replace the current upkeep system. I'd suggest each point of supply costing a certain amount of energy and alloys. This could then make supply feel more like a localised resource instead of a cap
  2. I love the use of the juggernaut as a mobile supply carrier, but I do wonder whether it would be excessively difficult to attack in some scenarios. For example in a federation moving your fleet through federation space would lose supplies making it difficult to attack. To stop this I'd suggest allowing the purchase of supplies from other countries in the diplomatic tab. This would likely be more costly, but also allow for more combined efforts. This would also not create fed wide doomstacks unless one member had enough supplies for everyone's ships.
  3. Also not sure whether this is part of your idea, but I don't think starbases captured in the war should be usable for supplies or should at least have a long cooldown. Otherwise I fear the entire point of the supply system to stop big empire's rolling through distant smaller empires would be redundant.
  4. On the ai I think it could work as long the supply collection is fairly automated. Then the ai could probably have weights for building anchorages etc based off closeness to hostile empires. The ai could probably also have a retreat mechanism which would trigger when fleets go below a certain percentage of supply forcing it to return to a starbases until largely full again. The final part which I'm not so sure about is making the ai target supply focused systems, but I'm sure that it's possible.
Honestly take or leave all of the above, I just absolutely love your idea.

  1. I'm very hesitant about directly tying supply to the upkeep cost. For one, it allows exploits like keeping your entire fleet in a random unclaimed system Inside your space to pay no upkeep, and it also means that the player might run a massive deficit of alloys and EC From upgrading a starbase and suddenly all their systems begin producing supply, then as soon as it fill up that drain disappears. Upkeep should be stable, not volatile. Losing ships also becomes much more punishing, as it also loses the next several months of upkeep you'd be paying as well. This is exacerbated for fighting in friendly space, since the ships will almost certainly be topped off.
  2. A) If a juggernaut is placed at a Bastion, it WOULD be exceeding hard to attack, and I think that's fine. Juggernauts are late game technology and limited to one per empire, the location of one should be able to influence any war significantly. If an enemy has a juggernaut parked at a bastion, you have two options: 1) Just go around. A juggernaut can only be at one place, two if there is a federation one. Pick another angle of attack. 2) Cut it off. Snipe an outpost that leads up to the bastion and cut off the supply with a few jump drive corvettes. It might take a while for the fleet to be starved out, but any fleet activity would exacerbate that even further. 3) Mass up and attack. Yes, there is no way your supply lines will be able to support a force of that size, but even if it was purely corvettes it would still give you a solid 5 months to gather and then strike.
    B) Diplomacy for supply was something I had thought about, but didn't end up putting in my proposal. Federation members would always share supply (possibly being a policy that could be turned off), but people who were in the same war but not in a federation wouldn't by default. I had thought about adding a way to ask for or give "fleet support", but hadn't been able to think of a way to make it non-exploity. Too easy for a player to bribe an empire into giving it, then just relying purely on their supply. Your suggestion of directly buying supply I think would solve that however.
  3. Another thing I had thought of, however unlike diplomacy I just plain forgot to include it. Whoops. Occupied or recently conquered (either 6 or 12 months) starbases would have an 80% penalty applied to both supply generation and supply throughput. Occupied planets would generate no supply. Captured planets would have a 50% penalty for that first time as well (but remember that only pops with military service enabled produce supply, so genocidals would get no benefits). Being able to capture enemy starbases and use them to establish a supply base is intended, and long range warfare isn't supposed to be impossible, just something that requires planning. Currently you can just click your fleet to the other side of the galaxy and forget about it, with this you'd have to check the travel times, operating time, estimate how long fights will take, and possibly retrofit ships to have more supply.
  4. The only ways that the player/top level AI can interact with the supply system is by building starbases, setting a starbase as a priority for supply, and moving ships around. You can't micromanage what path supply is going down. The main concerns for the AI are: A) can it build starbases/anchorages in places to properly move supply around, B) can it properly target and defend anchorages in a war, C) can it know when to mass fleets over the supply limit, when to retreat due to low supply, and when to stay under supply limit. I'm mostly worried about point A here, because having a bunch of anchorages on the frontline don't do a whole lot if it's being constrained by a chain of outposts leading up them. For simplicity sake, I don't think the AI would attempt to make supply highways until it gets access to the hyperspace relay, because otherwise you end up with extraneous starbases in the middle of these highways. This is something that would honestly require thorough play testing to see what good strategies are before we even begin to theorize how the AI should handle it.
 
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We have the resource capacity to run supplies to an entire world with possibly billions of lives living on it with possibly a huge range of different requirements. I don't think the small numbers onboard ships become an issue, especially with advanced robotics and such.

Honestly, the reasons for adding this system is purely to improve gameplay. I chose supply over something like the force limit or combat width system EU4 has because having a force limit or combat width in space just makes no sense. Supply, while it might be a little contrived, at least can make sense. It's easy to justify it as military vessels needing specialized parts, or colonies being able to self-manufacture what they need with replicators. If the dichotomy is still too much for you, but you are otherwise fine with the system, I think adding systems to make running supplies to those worlds be something to think about would make sense and possibly add another interesting facet to colonization.
 
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I really like this idea ! Just like it is presented, I also think there is a need for such a mechanism to make warfare more interesting and fairer.

I was wondering if it would be interesting to add piracy to supply transfer, like there is for trade routes. It would mean that trying to supply a fleet through unprotected space would be less efficient, and may even lead to additional losses of supply production that would never actually reach the fleet. Also, it would make deep military operations more risky since the supply lines can be endangered by pirates (on top of requiring good logistics). To me, it seems legitimate that pirates would use military supplies to expand their operations and numbers, but I'm not quite certain for the impact on this mechanic and the game.
What do you think ?
 
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Even if this is exploited only by some mods (like Realistic Ships), vanilla costs and upkeeps seem to leave an unused ship size (or a "ship size and a half") between cruiser and battleship ship sizes. Proposed numbers could reflect this.

Stellaris ship sizes go Corvette(1), Destroyer(2), Cruiser(4), Battleship(8), and Titan(16). While there is theoretically room for a ship size at 6, I wouldn't call it an "unused ship size". Ship sizes double every step up.

I like the idea, but the numbers are completely off. Applying this to my current game would mean I couldn't even supply my size 600 alliance fleet with the supply production of my whole empire, let alone my own 13 size 230 fleets. Also your "Supply per month per 10 naval cap" column is off by a factor 100.

I think to balance the numbers a citadel should produce roughly enough supply for one endgame fleet of size 230/250. Also I miss gateways having an effect on supply throughput.

Whoops on the supply per month per 10 naval cap. Was dividing by ten, instead of taking the number as being AFTER dividing by ten. Fixed now.

In regards to supporting a fleet, are you sure you did your math properly? A Citadel with anchorages and a logistic office will have a throughput of 1800 base, 2100 if you have a fully built strategic coordination center. Assuming you have all the techs, that brings it up to 2700/3150. Since you are late enough in the game to have 3k naval cap, I'm going to assume that you have the megastructure and only do one set of math. 3150, plus the base production of 200 is enough to support 335 corvettes or 191 naval cap of battleships. However, if you keep your battleships docked at the station, now you can have 319 naval cap worth of battleships, significantly in excess of your fleet sizes. Gateways do effect supply, in that they allow you to effectively ignore cross empire chains and move supply directly from station to station. It also allows fleets to be kept in reserve at anchorages far behind the battle lines, and only drain the supply on the front when moving through. Considering how strong those two things are, thats why I had them use the lower number between two starbases. My goal is that a citadel at max throughput can support roughly a single fleet.

The goal for the balance of supply production is that while an empire is actively at war and moving ships around, they will be net negative on supply. While they are at peace with ships docked, they will be net positive. A docked battleship in peace uses 7 supply per naval cap, a corvettes uses 4. Let's average towards the high end and say 6. That means for your fleet of 3000 naval cap you'd need 18000 supply, let's call it 20k since you want a surplus. Even with 1k pops, 20 citadels, and 200 systems that's only 7k production. You are correct in that it would be completely off what's required. I think the solution to this would be via technology: I calculated for techs to increase the supply throughput, but none that affect supply production. Ideally I think at your point you would have 3x the supply production. How far into repeatables are you? And what values do you actually have for pops, systems, and starbases? Some examples from late game would help balance those things.

The federation fleet is something that I hadn't considered at all. I think the only solution is that it would have to be split, as the whole point of this suggestion is to stop doom stacking.
 
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I really like this idea ! Just like it is presented, I also think there is a need for such a mechanism to make warfare more interesting and fairer.

I was wondering if it would be interesting to add piracy to supply transfer, like there is for trade routes. It would mean that trying to supply a fleet through unprotected space would be less efficient, and may even lead to additional losses of supply production that would never actually reach the fleet. Also, it would make deep military operations more risky since the supply lines can be endangered by pirates (on top of requiring good logistics). To me, it seems legitimate that pirates would use military supplies to expand their operations and numbers, but I'm not quite certain for the impact on this mechanic and the game.
What do you think ?

Piracy is something I had considered, but ultimately I'm really not sure what would be best. The three options I see are as follows: A) Supply ignores piracy, B) Supply doesn't contribute to piracy, but is drained by unsuppressed piracy, or C) Supply routes contribute to piracy at roughly 10% as much as trade value. This is made even harder for me by the fact I think piracy should be suppressed on a sector by sector basis (see my sector overhaul suggestion in my signature). I think this is something that would really need play testing to see how it works and feels. It's just too hard to judge how it would be without getting to actually play around with how it feels.
 
In regards to supporting a fleet, are you sure you did your math properly?

My main problem is supply production, but tell me if I missed anything:

Outpost
61​
10​
610​
Citadel
32​
200​
6400​
Shipyard
6​
20​
120​
Megashipyard T3
1​
300​
300​
Juggernaut
1​
200​
200​
Pop
6915​
1​
6915​
MilPop
161​
4​
644​
Total
15189​

Allianceown Fleets
Corvette
10​
48​
480​
94​
940​
Destroyer
25​
36​
900​
Cruiser
60​
36​
2160​
Battleship
140​
36​
5040​
15​
2100​
Titan
400​
3​
1200​
1​
400​
Supply per Fleet
1​
9780​
16​
3440​
9780​
55040​
Total
64820​

I missed the supply from pops and the reduction in my first post, but even now the numbers don't fit.
Even with the 60% reduction from peace, docked and crew quarters we are still at 25928 and completely exceeding the empire-wide supply production.
 
My main problem is supply production, but tell me if I missed anything:

Outpost
61​
10​
610​
Citadel
32​
200​
6400​
Shipyard
6​
20​
120​
Megashipyard T3
1​
300​
300​
Juggernaut
1​
200​
200​
Pop
6915​
1​
6915​
MilPop
161​
4​
644​
Total
15189​

Allianceown Fleets
Corvette
10​
48​
480​
94​
940​
Destroyer
25​
36​
900​
Cruiser
60​
36​
2160​
Battleship
140​
36​
5040​
15​
2100​
Titan
400​
3​
1200​
1​
400​
Supply per Fleet
1​
9780​
16​
3440​
9780​
55040​
Total
64820​

I missed the supply from pops and the reduction in my first post, but even now the numbers don't fit.
Even with the 60% reduction from peace, docked and crew quarters we are still at 25928 and completely exceeding the empire-wide supply production.

The math all looks correct.

Yeah, late game scenarios just aren't supported with the current system. Based off your numbers, it looks like you'd need at least double supply production to be able to be net positive in peace time (64,820*0.4=25,928), and triple would still be significantly enough below your requirements to be a drain in warfare. I think a repeatable tech giving [+10% supply from pops, +50% supply from soldiers], would work well, along with a set of 5 normal techs giving +20% production to starbases would account for this. Maybe the Mega-Shipyard should be significantly buffed in the amount of supply it produces? Like a 5x or even 10x increase.

Both Federations and the Galactic Community might be changed to deal with supply. The Mutual Defense chain especially I think could be changed so that the downside is reducing the supply reduction for being at peace (currently the ship upkeep is punishing to people with large fleets). The [Interior Lines] federation perk (currently +10% sunlight speed in friendly space) could be expanded to also give +100 throughput in friendly space, and the Martial Alliances bonuses to federation fleet contribution could also reduce the supply upkeep of the federation fleet.
 
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I think this is a really interesting and worthwhile idea.

Both Federations and the Galactic Community might be changed to deal with supply. The Mutual Defense chain especially I think could be changed so that the downside is reducing the supply reduction for being at peace (currently the ship upkeep is punishing to people with large fleets). The [Interior Lines] federation perk (currently +10% sunlight speed in friendly space) could be expanded to also give +100 throughput in friendly space, and the Martial Alliances bonuses to federation fleet contribution could also reduce the supply upkeep of the federation fleet.

Yes, and in fact in might be worth routing some questions about how supply works through the Galactic Community. For instance, I would suggest that war allies share supply by default, but at a lower rate (e.g. 30%) of throughput to represent that another empire's logistical setup might not be very good at addressing your needs. Logistical standardisation could then be part of a resolution chain which increases these - it could be under mutual defense, or one of the economic chains, or somewhere else. Rules of War resolutions could lower supply throughput overall by implementing weapons inspections.

Defeating a crisis under this system is likely to be far harder than normal, especially if your ships have to go far from home. Activating a Galactic Focus resolution to defeat a crisis could make the Galactic Community war allies in effect, allowing sharing of supply across the galaxy. Of course such a resolution is open to abuse - in some ways this is good, because it explains why the GC tends to be so reluctant to pass a resolution to end a galactic threat.
 
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I think supply production should be quite generous to not limit the total fleet size, we already have naval cap and upkeep for this. The challenge should be managing throughput.

I wonder how you imagine supply exchange inside a system, meaning from planet to starbase and from starbase to fleet. Is this subject to throughput as well or unlimited?

The drawbacks for being out of supply are right now not persitent, meaning as soon as you are back in supply all problems are gone. I think ships should take damage over time if out of supply. The values I post are the minimum hull and armor the ships will tick down to (perhaps at 1% per week or so) and the maximum they can be repaired to. Having an engineer admiral will move you up one category. Reaching 0% from damage over time will destroy a ship.

less than 10% suppliesno supplies
at shipyard
75%​
50%​
at starbase
50%​
25%​
at outpost
25%​
10%​
own space
10%​
5%​
friendly space
5%​
2%​
anywhere else
2%​
0%​

Another point could be that jumpdrives require supplies and won't work under 50% supply level.
 
Stellaris ship sizes go Corvette(1), Destroyer(2), Cruiser(4), Battleship(8), and Titan(16). While there is theoretically room for a ship size at 6, I wouldn't call it an "unused ship size". Ship sizes double every step up.
Support Cruisers (5 & 6), Battlecruiser (7), Dreadnought (10), Heavy Dreadnought (12) (Cruiser and Battleship are the lighter variants of their respective category in this mod).
 
I think this is a really interesting and worthwhile idea.


Yes, and in fact in might be worth routing some questions about how supply works through the Galactic Community. For instance, I would suggest that war allies share supply by default, but at a lower rate (e.g. 30%) of throughput to represent that another empire's logistical setup might not be very good at addressing your needs. Logistical standardisation could then be part of a resolution chain which increases these - it could be under mutual defense, or one of the economic chains, or somewhere else. Rules of War resolutions could lower supply throughput overall by implementing weapons inspections.

Defeating a crisis under this system is likely to be far harder than normal, especially if your ships have to go far from home. Activating a Galactic Focus resolution to defeat a crisis could make the Galactic Community war allies in effect, allowing sharing of supply across the galaxy. Of course such a resolution is open to abuse - in some ways this is good, because it explains why the GC tends to be so reluctant to pass a resolution to end a galactic threat.

I don't think war allies should share supply be default, because it would make it very easy to steal supply from someone. Not only from deception (pretending to be an ally) but also by straight up guaranteeing independence, as there is no way for the empire you guarantee to turn you down. Selling supply to another empire allows empires to support each other in a war, while still giving them agency. Putting a direct price on supply means that "scamming" other empires out of supply just becomes buying supply off of them. Indeed, it's possible for a peaceful empire to go full war profiteer and sell off supply they never plan on using.

Reducing throughput for allies just wouldn't work. Ships take supply from starbases, starbases move supply via throughput. How would the 30% penalty even work? Is the other 70% restricted to only be native supply, or is it just lost altogether? If the two sources of supply are kept separate, how does that affect storage? If I don't share a border with my ally, and thus have no path to send supply, am I just unable to base fleets out of their territory?

You do make a good point about how supply makes tackling a crisis much harder. To a certain point I think this makes sense, but I do think having the crisis focus did something to facilitate supply basing. The trouble is I'm finding it very difficult to find a non-exploitive way of enforcing that with mechanics. Maybe just make it an AI modifier to be more willing to sell supply?

Having the rules of war chain reduce supply throughput or production makes perfect sense, I really like it.
 
I think supply production should be quite generous to not limit the total fleet size, we already have naval cap and upkeep for this. The challenge should be managing throughput.

I wonder how you imagine supply exchange inside a system, meaning from planet to starbase and from starbase to fleet. Is this subject to throughput as well or unlimited?

The drawbacks for being out of supply are right now not persitent, meaning as soon as you are back in supply all problems are gone. I think ships should take damage over time if out of supply. The values I post are the minimum hull and armor the ships will tick down to (perhaps at 1% per week or so) and the maximum they can be repaired to. Having an engineer admiral will move you up one category. Reaching 0% from damage over time will destroy a ship.

less than 10% suppliesno supplies
at shipyard
75%​
50%​
at starbase
50%​
25%​
at outpost
25%​
10%​
own space
10%​
5%​
friendly space
5%​
2%​
anywhere else
2%​
0%​

Another point could be that jumpdrives require supplies and won't work under 50% supply level.

My goal is that empires at war will be at negative net supply, as to create a more natural way of war exhaustion, and potentially overhaul the way peace deals work (just got out of playing a terravore game, and the 10 year forced truce really breaks immersion). A base starport holds enough supply to refill 200 corvettes, or 83 years of corvette operational time. A fleet of 40 corvettes could fight for 20 years on just that storage alone. The slow drain during active warfare will likely only come into play if you are constantly fighting wars. You are correct in that supply shouldn't be treated as a limit to how many ships can be built, and play testing would have to be done to ensure that is the case. While during early and midgame internal supply throughput may cause a front to lose supply despite the empire as a whole being net positive, in the later game when gateways come up this suddenly stops being an issue.

When a fleet docks at a starbase, it can resupply instantly. When a fleet is merely in the system, it resupplies at a rate of double it's upkeep (so effectively ticks up at its upkeep rate). Ideally supply would actually tick daily, to prevent when the month tick happens actually having an effect on battles, even though it's calculated and displayed as a monthly rate.

You bring up a very good point of just intentionally idling ships in a place with no or insufficient supply as a means to get out of paying it. Unfortunately your suggestion wouldn't actually fix the problem, as all the player would have to do is park their ships at an outpost disconnected from the rest of their network (or even one connected to the network and just eat the 200 supply), and they get to just sit at 25% hp, and since repairing doesn't cost any resources it would have no downside. I do think slow health loss is a solution though, but I make making it different from damage would be best. I'm going to call it "decay" as stand in term. Every month that a ship is at 0 supply, it suffers a 1% loss of hull. If a fleet gets left alone with no supply for 100 months (8 years 4 months), the entire fleet is lost. However when a fleet suffering decay gets resupplied, each percentage of decay removed requires a full month upkeep of supply, meaning that allowing a fleet to decay does not allow the cheating of supply. I'm not sure at the rate at which decay should be repaired, but having it tick up at 1% per month would make sense as well as preventing a massive spike in supply requirement increase.

Jumpdrives requiring supplies is something that I'm open to, with the cost being around 10%. It would need play testing to see how it feels and works though. I don't think that requiring 50% supply makes a lot of sense though. It adds an arbitrary requirement that doesn't make a ton of sense, and would lead to feelsbad moments when you forget or get distracted and then can't escape with a fleet at 45% supply.
 
How would the 30% penalty even work? Is the other 70% restricted to only be native supply, or is it just lost altogether? If the two sources of supply are kept separate, how does that affect storage?

You're right, I hadn't really taken in how the system would operate. I do have one other suggestion to how allied supply could work (hopefully this one makes more sense in the context of your system!). What if allied fleets were only resupplied to a certain % of their total capacity - maybe for a defense pact this would be 20%? That would allow them to operate to defend an allies territory, but wouldn't give much capacity to go on adventures beyond it. You could set this to be a base resupply per ship class - this would stop players sending in ships kitted out for supply to nab what they can get.

You could vary this for different types of diplomatic relationship. Perhaps an independence guarantee gives no resupply, but a Federation gives more (e.g 30%) when at war, climbing higher for more integrated Federations and for diplomatic alliances. You could have a few levels of co-operation for crises - perhaps the first is for open borders, follow by 10% supply, then 20% etc.

On a separate matter, do you have any thoughts on how vassals should work? Under this system, I should think that the appeal of vassals is that they should resupply their overlords in all circumstances, and that you are free to exploit this as much as you wish. Of course, you could integrate an uptick of resentment if you park your fleet to suck up their supply, and this might be good, because it seems like they are presently too few ways for your vassals to get mad at you. It would also sharply differentiate them from tributaries, who give you energy but will not resupply your fleet.
 
You're right, I hadn't really taken in how the system would operate. I do have one other suggestion to how allied supply could work (hopefully this one makes more sense in the context of your system!). What if allied fleets were only resupplied to a certain % of their total capacity - maybe for a defense pact this would be 20%? That would allow them to operate to defend an allies territory, but wouldn't give much capacity to go on adventures beyond it. You could set this to be a base resupply per ship class - this would stop players sending in ships kitted out for supply to nab what they can get.

You could vary this for different types of diplomatic relationship. Perhaps an independence guarantee gives no resupply, but a Federation gives more (e.g 30%) when at war, climbing higher for more integrated Federations and for diplomatic alliances. You could have a few levels of co-operation for crises - perhaps the first is for open borders, follow by 10% supply, then 20% etc.

On a separate matter, do you have any thoughts on how vassals should work? Under this system, I should think that the appeal of vassals is that they should resupply their overlords in all circumstances, and that you are free to exploit this as much as you wish. Of course, you could integrate an uptick of resentment if you park your fleet to suck up their supply, and this might be good, because it seems like they are presently too few ways for your vassals to get mad at you. It would also sharply differentiate them from tributaries, who give you energy but will not resupply your fleet.

My main concern isn't with using allies as resupply bases, but with potentially gamey or exploity behavior. By making all transfer of supply be paid, it means that the player/AI has full agency over when or when not to sell supply. Supply also can be quite valuable, which means if it was just by agreements people would have very little reason to ever give away supply.

That said, only being able to resupply partially does make some sense though, and I like how it keeps your fleets from being as active far from your borders. I think the lowest that number should be is 25%-30%, as below that It makes it likely that it would be impossible for your ships to return back home at full supply. Vassals should be atleast as efficient at sharing supply as a max level federation, with that number being in the 75%-90% range. I like the idea of every centralization level of a federation increasing the supply efficiency, so if it's gaining 10% per level that means 30%-50% at their first level.

Alternatively, it could just be a flat reduction down to a single number, with no distinction as to how close your allies are to you. I'm actually leaning towards this option, as keeping a system simple is VERY important. A flat 50% sounds fine. This could potentially be influenced by the galactic community, either as part of a chain, or specifically for the "galactic focus" ones. I'm leaning towards the galactic focus, mainly because it currently gives so little.