Anyone wish for longer more in-depth and detailed space battles? Thoughts?

[ChillB]

I love space battles but i feel like they are extremely boring in this game, its to fast paced, instead of a full fledged battle and a detailed battle, if you have a fast pc, even a late game space battle will end in little over 15 seconds on fastest speed.

There is barely even any ship spacing, absolutely no depth in battles in general. Ships like battleship classes and titans should last way longer in combat due to them being capital ships in your armada but instead they struggle and die super fast especially to corvettes. A juggernaut is not even useful when it comes to fleet engagements right now the meta is to use it for raiding as the ship is to slow, and somehow cant be followed FOR SOME REASON. I would not have an issue if it could be followed into battle but instead it lags behind even the slowest of fleets. And its focused fired by ship AI.

A huge deathstack vs a death stack should last a long while as its alot of resources put against each other. Have you seen unbidden 500k fleets just melt in 2 seconds to kenetic battery weapons from a huge range? Yeah this is what im talking about. Space battles are easily one of my favorite things but right now its very bland and all you do is send fleets in a huge stack and they charge towards the enemy and just circle in weird ways. Its awkward. What about strikecraft where they swarm like bees its super weird and fly in unnatural motions like going in and out of engagements and dipping in. There should be two forms of star fighters, bombers for anti ships and fighters for fighting other strike craft and acting as point defense.

We need broadside engagements, ship spacing, fighters fighting independently against each other and chasing other strike craft in the background. Ship depth, multiple ship heights when it comes to battle. Some ships need to last longer. Fighters need new animation and functions. Fleets need new functions instead of swarming each other like angry wasps. You can set battleships to carrier and they STILL charge in head first into battle next to corvettes. Arty battleships should always stay at range against other battleships. Some ships should be able to hold position in defense of planets and star systems but able to fire while in place would be super useful especially with strikecraft and long range weapons. I can list alot more but i know im asking to much im sorry. I like war aspect but its just boring.

ill link some battles from other sci fi for examples

Ship spacing and detailed battles, ships everywhere instead of circling and swarm formations and boring functions.

broad side battles of capital ships

Hold position and defensive position fleets.

Massive over planet space battles

Unpopular opinion but i dont know why they removed infinite stacking fleets.... it added major battles in the late game. I wish they would bring it back. Fighting a 1 million awakened empire fleet power with your own massive fleet brought major amounts of enjoyment to the game for me. Yeah i know ill get hate for saying i like fleet stacking but yes i like it alot. And i wish it could come back into motion with todays version of stellaris

example of old stellaris fleet stacking

You never get battles like that ever again the pure amount of ships and firepower and the battle was epic now space battles are boring, lame and tedius. Ground combat is even worse and has absolutely no strategy.

 

[mergele]

Nah, space battles are mostly fine. They do their job. A bit of polishing could be done (destroyer pd front sec being straight up weaker or titans sometimes ignoring artillery range for examplke), but overall they do their job fine.
Btw. You can still have these epic mass mosh pits, just use 4 or 5 fleets together instead of all in one. Result is the same.

 

[ChillB]

Nah, space battles are mostly fine. They do their job. A bit of polishing could be done (destroyer pd front sec being straight up weaker or titans sometimes ignoring artillery range for examplke), but overall they do their job fine.
Btw. You can still have these epic mass mosh pits, just use 4 or 5 fleets together instead of all in one. Result is the same.

Space battles are boring and bland in stellaris. The ships function weird. Strikecraft act like angry bees instead of fighters, battleships charge headfirst into battle even with longer range combat computers. They dont serve their purpose nor plays like it. They just circle around the enemy and does not act like a legit armada battle and thats a fact. Neither is their strategy other then "oh i changed my load out" and admirals offer no strategy to fleet movements or engagements they just add extra buffs to fleets and extra stats.. yawn.

 

[ChillB]

Dont forget ships also die WAY to fast, Big space battles should last a long time instead they dont. Capital ships should take a beating. Especially juggernauts and titans... except they dont. Battleships are a joke to

 

[mergele]

I disagree. Battleships last quite a considerable amount of time when taken on by small stuff, and against massive guns they should die fast.
Strike craft could indeed get a noticeable face lift by having some circle the other direction, that would be cool.
You seem to have a very specific visual fantasy you want to be fullfilled, I don't share it.

As I said titans ignoring the artillery setting is a bug that needs fixing.
Admirals are very appropriate in my opinion. A 20% sublight speed admiral is very noticeable. So is a +30% hp one. I don't want every little admiral to be his own tiny hero figure that changes everything has 15 special rules. I have an empire to manage not a Kindergarden. Also, in the end Stellaris is a rather casual experience.

 

[TTJ]

Actually I hardly ever zoom into space battles. Usually I watch from a "tactical view" in which fleets are just big blobs. Once my fleet power is overwhelming I usually don't even bother to leave galaxy map mode - just send my fleet around to conquer territory and let my Admiral do his/her job.
So for me devs don't need to waste time here, as long as there are more pressing things to do...

 

[Attitude Adjuster]

I've always thought that halving the amount of ships whilst doubling their customisability would be fun.

Also I wish behaviours worked, I think they did for one patch or so but now even artillery ships just charge in.

 

[Akka le Vil]

I love space battles but i feel like they are extremely boring in this game, its to fast paced, instead of a full fledged battle and a detailed battle, if you have a fast pc, even a late game space battle will end in little over 15 seconds on fastest speed.

This is due to the 2.0 update which massively accelerated battles. Pre-2.0 had much slower battles (sometimes months on end), with slower speed for ships and more stable positions.

 

[Mastikator]

Looks like the game you want to play is Master of Orion 2. It's turn based so complicated space battles are okay.

I think Stellaris should not try to emulate other successful games, let Stellaris be Stellaris. If you want to player other games just play other games.

 

[aroddo]

I love space battles but i feel like they are extremely boring in this game, its to fast paced, instead of a full fledged battle and a detailed battle, if you have a fast pc, even a late game space battle will end in little over 15 seconds on fastest speed.

There is barely even any ship spacing, absolutely no depth in battles in general. Ships like battleship classes and titans should last way longer in combat due to them being capital ships in your armada but instead they struggle and die super fast especially to corvettes. A juggernaut is not even useful when it comes to fleet engagements right now the meta is to use it for raiding as the ship is to slow, and somehow cant be followed FOR SOME REASON. I would not have an issue if it could be followed into battle but instead it lags behind even the slowest of fleets. And its focused fired by ship AI.

A huge deathstack vs a death stack should last a long while as its alot of resources put against each other. Have you seen unbidden 500k fleets just melt in 2 seconds to kenetic battery weapons from a huge range? Yeah this is what im talking about. Space battles are easily one of my favorite things but right now its very bland and all you do is send fleets in a huge stack and they charge towards the enemy and just circle in weird ways. Its awkward. What about strikecraft where they swarm like bees its super weird and fly in unnatural motions like going in and out of engagements and dipping in. There should be two forms of star fighters, bombers for anti ships and fighters for fighting other strike craft and acting as point defense.

We need broadside engagements, ship spacing, fighters fighting independently against each other and chasing other strike craft in the background. Ship depth, multiple ship heights when it comes to battle. Some ships need to last longer. Fighters need new animation and functions. Fleets need new functions instead of swarming each other like angry wasps. You can set battleships to carrier and they STILL charge in head first into battle next to corvettes. Arty battleships should always stay at range against other battleships. Some ships should be able to hold position in defense of planets and star systems but able to fire while in place would be super useful especially with strikecraft and long range weapons. I can list alot more but i know im asking to much im sorry. I like war aspect but its just boring.

ill link some battles from other sci fi for examples

Ship spacing and detailed battles, ships everywhere instead of circling and swarm formations and boring functions.

broad side battles of capital ships

Hold position and defensive position fleets.

Massive over planet space battles

Unpopular opinion but i dont know why they removed infinite stacking fleets.... it added major battles in the late game. I wish they would bring it back. Fighting a 1 million awakened empire fleet power with your own massive fleet brought major amounts of enjoyment to the game for me. Yeah i know ill get hate for saying i like fleet stacking but yes i like it alot. And i wish it could come back into motion with todays version of stellaris

example of old stellaris fleet stacking

You never get battles like that ever again the pure amount of ships and firepower and the battle was epic now space battles are boring, lame and tedius. Ground combat is even worse and has absolutely no strategy.

Frankly, it sounds like you are looking for a different game.

Like this!

 

[DrFranknfurter]

I just want to say I strongly agree that the visuals, pacing and overall 'epicness' of combat could easily be improved.

I love the videos, those are the battles that are indeed visually breathtaking and memorable.

But I disagree with any suggestion of increasing mechanical detail and complexity of combat, and would not focus on prioritizing combat changes over bugs, balancing, diplomatic and economic changes. (although luckily a lot of work has already been done on combat and then deleted... maybe some of the magic could be restored...).

If you look at 1.9.1 battles there were some features that created truly epic battles:
1. Combat speed (an old stat that caused ships to move much slower when fighting - less likely to look like a swarm of lightning fast angry bees)
2. Less overpowered weapons (research rates were slower and weapon techs started at a lower tier so weapons did less damage per shot at the same in-game year, fewer repeatables were reached by the end-game resulting in much less one-shotting of ships and fleets)
3. More powerful defensive technologies and better armour (90% damage reduction from armour, hull HP boosting techs. Battleships were as tanky as corvettes are evasive)
4. Area of effect abilities like minefields, auras etc. (battlefields were pretty gorgeous, interesting and unique)
5. Stations over planets not the star. So the battle over Coruscant, Cadia etc. actually happened (not a vague blur 8 light-mins away, with the visuals being flashing lights superimposed over an eye-bleedingly bright star)
6. Giant Doomstacks and monumental battles (you didn't kill an enemy piecemeal as each small fleet arrives and dies instantly thanks to their different strategic speeds, then kill the exact same fleets seven more times as they disengage and regroup, disengage and regroup and so on and so forth... with each subsequent battle after the first being smaller and less epic)

*coughs* (1.9.1 was a better game) *coughs*

So yes, the engine completely supports beautiful and interesting battles... I know because we used to have them.

BUT
Adding mechanical complexity will make the game less appealing for casual players, and oddly less appealing to the seasoned multiplayer gamers (who cannot easily pause to issue orders)
So to appeal to all those players suggestions really need to clearly and obviously involve no changes to the actions per min of optimal play.

Also combat kinda works... it's not perfect (it used to be better), but at least compared to everything else it's not awful... so people may understandably want it to be listed lower in terms of priorities - deathly afraid that any change will hit performance or introduce game-breaking bugs, or the focus will mean that existing bugs will not be fixed for a few more years.

 

[Nakkivene]

Well yes, but I want a new game mostly. One that ditches everything stellaris has now except maybe exploration.

 

[Annihilat0r]

It sounds like you might enjoy this mod:

Steam Workshop::Amazing Space Battles

steamcommunity.com

 

[FuriousGreg]

I think it might be interesting to do something like how Endless Space 2 does it with you choosing a battle tactic before a battle starts. The problem is ES2 isn't a RTS so while something like that may work in single player where the game would pause at the beginning of a battle and you choose your tactic it would be annoying in multiplayer to have the game interrupted when other people are at war.

 

[sillyrobot]

Lomger? They literally take months now! Each shot takes days to reload!. I want faster space battles where the whole battle is over in say a week!

 

[MrFreake_PDX]

somehow cant be followed FOR SOME REASON

Didn't this get fixed in 2.6.1/2.6.2?

 

[methegrate]

This is due to the 2.0 update which massively accelerated battles. Pre-2.0 had much slower battles (sometimes months on end), with slower speed for ships and more stable positions.

They did this to try and help with doomstacks, along with slowing travel speed way the hell down. The idea was that to keep you from being able to use one fleet to reinforce every corner of your empire. If battles are over before your stack can arrive on the scene, then you need to split it up into multiple fleets.

Aside from the quality of life issue involved with travel slowing down, I feel like this was a good plan. (But seriously, it's SO FREAKING SLOW. I don't understand how anyone plays the game on anything but "fastest" anymore.)

Otherwise, idk... I've never really understood the focus on the battles themselves. They're just animated clips. They're neat to look at once or twice, but otherwise I don't really get wanting to watch the space battles. Two fleets go in, one comes out, a data sheet tells you the rest.

Now if I could just figure out why the AI's ships manage to withdraw at like five times the rate that mine do, I'd be in business. Seriously, the last battle I had was early game, all corvettes on both sides. I won the battle and lost 24 ships. They "lost" the battle but only lost 4. Every. Damn. Time.

 

[Kayden_II]

What bugs me the most is how each ship acts in a space-battle on its own: You don't really see this if you've the same ships with the same computers in a battle-fleet, because all of them act exactly the same. But have a mixed battle-fleet and you see something like this: Corvettes run into the enemy like headless chickens, destroyers and cruisers somewhere in between and battleships like gentleman-generals in the faaar back. Besides the thing that it looks ugly, I'm pretty sure that your entire battle-fleet ( with corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, battleships and titans ) would stay in some sort of a formation ( in which bigger ships are usually surrounded by smaller ships ) and in which all ships ( bigger as well as smaller ones ) would usually cover each other.

EDITED some wording.

 

[Janx14]

Now if I could just figure out why the AI's ships manage to withdraw at like five times the rate that mine do, I'd be in business. Seriously, the last battle I had was early game, all corvettes on both sides. I won the battle and lost 24 ships. They "lost" the battle but only lost 4. Every. Damn. Time.

This is something i've noticed since 2.2. The AI seems to be amazing at somehow having their ships retreat.

 

[methegrate]

What bugs me the most is how each ship acts in a space-battle on its own: You don't really see this if you've the same ships with the same computers in a battle-fleet, because all of them act exactly the same. But have a mixed battle-fleet and you see something like this: Corvettes run into the enemy like headless chickens, destroyers and cruisers somewhere in between and battleships like gentleman-generals in the faaar back. Besides that it looks ugly, I'm pretty sure that your entire battle-fleet ( with corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, battleships and titans ) would stay in some sort of a formation ( in which bigger ships are usually surrounded / covered by smaller ships ).

I don't know, that actually sounds right to me. Corvettes are your small ship skirmishers, just a notch above fighters. Cruisers are your heavies, the main battle tanks if you will. They won't wade into the fray like corvettes do, but they're definitely in the main fight. Battleships are your artillery, standing well back and blasting away. And destroyers are your picket line that protects cruisers and battleships from missiles and small ships.

For a generic fleet that sounds about right to me. What I'd like is the ability to assign other formations, because you're absolutely right. For some fleets you absolutely want something different. I'd like to be able to assign an artillery formation, where my big ships whale away with their cannons and my small ships protect them. Or an assault formation, where my battleships break the enemy lines and bring all of their firepower to bear. Or a carrier formation where my fleet never leaves the edges of the solar system, setting up a protective picket from which to launch fighters.