Within Stellaris, kinetic weapons are fairly straightforward: for the most part, they do bonus damage versus an opponent’s shields and hull, and have a harder time getting through an opponent’s armor. Energy weapons are very much less so: some weapons are anti-armor, some are anti-hull, and some are even anti-shield, while another group ignores shields AND armor. But each type of weapon follows a basic set of rules: if it fires a shot, the shot hits or doesn’t based on accuracy (including tracking and evasion) alone. The opponent can’t eliminate the shot before it has a chance to resolve, whether that is by the targeted ship or one of its fleet mates.
Not so with missiles and torpedoes in Stellaris. In a realistic setting, these guided weapons (GW) would be able to make corrections all the way to their targets, accounting for limitations from their initial launch and defensive maneuvers by the target. In a realistic setting, GW would be very accurate, especially at any significant range, when compared to kinetic and energy weapons, and could do enormous damage on a hit. In a realistic setting, kinetic and energy weapons would likely hit with a (perhaps much) smaller percentage of shots and would also inflict less damage per hit. In this realistic setting, a warship would likely gear a large percentage of their defenses against the attacks with the greatest chance to do the most harm, that being GW.
In a relatively fair game setting, the defensive systems used against GW would knock down their effectiveness to a similar level to the other types of attacks, preferably leaving some way for them to remain unique (e.g., burst damage and/or long range for smaller ships). But Stellaris doesn’t have that right now: a limited number of filled PD slots can completely neuter the output of at least an equal number of filled GW slots (which are also each effectively twice the size of the slot defeating them). Only when a massed salvo arrives all during the same few combat days (rather than a thinner but continuous stream) does any significant chance exist. That assumes that the opponent isn’t an AI player that has decided that every one of its Corvettes and Destroyers have to be designed with Picket ship sections.
Currently in Stellaris, GW aren’t completely without merit. As an attempt to give them some level of balance, GW have significantly better range than other M-slot-equivalent weapons, and their favorable damage ratios (missiles IGNORE shields, full vs. armor, +25% vs. hull) allows them much faster destructiveness than their basic kinetic and energy cousins (which are +42% and +52% slower at destroying a ship than missiles with +25% shields and +25% armor over a given hull value, e.g., 200 shield, 200 armor, 800 hull, and +60% and 71% when shields/armor are at +50%, e.g., 400/400/800) – assuming of course that the target has no PD. GW do still have to deal with a slightly smaller Tracking value, and flight times will always result in some overkill on shots (even with retargeting) and some extra incoming damage before the shots get to a target. But they would need to be balanced much tighter if there would be no PD at all going forward.
What would be the plan moving forward? First, Point Defense as a weapon type goes away. We’ll be reducing Accuracy on GW to account for assumed point defense and jamming efforts by the targeted ships (not by screening ships, though), but those won’t be simulated on the screen. There may still be a place for GW Accuracy debuff items for ships, whether as a core component, auxiliary module, or computer effect – it would probably make sense to allow for this while increasing Tracking significantly relative to slot size.
Second, there won’t be a need for a standard Swarmer-style missile mount, as there won’t be PD mounts to overwhelm. There probably should be a wider variety of GW types, including re-introducing S- and L-slot variants (and doing away with G-slots), but a large part of the variants should be focused on allowing GW to synergize better with other weapon mixes. The current shield-penetration configuration only synergizes with Strike Craft (and creates an unbalanced damage model), while adding shield-buster (anti-shield), bomb-pumped laser (anti-armor), or exotic radiation (armor penetration) warheads would give more options for ship designers.
Third, the basic attack model for GW would need to change. Reducing Accuracy (base or after applying target debuff modules) for GW would do two things: bring the “no PD” damage rate closer to kinetics and energy, and allow for technology improvements to base Accuracy (something that only kinetics and energy got before). Increasing the cooldown (i.e., reducing the rate of fire) would also get the damage rate more in line, although it might also lock in GW as too good of a “burst damage” choice (i.e., smaller number of larger damage attacks, to limit withdraw checks and allow for complete kills). Speaking of “burst damage”: Torpedoes would need to come (way?) down on damage per hit and (again: way?) down on cooldown, to still be a good “burst” weapon (along with reduced Tracking and better ACC-debuff resistance, keeping them a good choice vs. capital ships), but no longer a mortal lock for Corvettes.
The biggest issue I see with this is exacerbating the problem with mono-fleets. If Destroyers (or other PD/Flak-mounting ships) can’t offer defensive capabilities to Battleships (which might still be the end-all, be-all), why bring them along at all? There are plenty of other changes that could be made to diversify fleets that might mitigate this, but it’s an extra concern to add to the pile.
I wanted to finish with a few words on Strike Craft and Flak mounts: I was reading another thread where someone commented that SC could be looked at as a limited-duration attack rather than a continuous-until-defeated attack. That might work, and would seem to dovetail pretty well with what I’m doing here, but I think it’s a hairier problem than with GW/PD. I would look at the same kind of change for Flak as PD, with Flak switching to a similar component/module setup or integrating directly into the PD system. But I would look for Hangars to do three things differently: produce static wings of Strike Craft that fight as a unit rather than as 4-8 individual little ships, replace wings every so often throughout the fight, and set up Hangars with SC wings with different tasks (e.g., interdictor, bomber, defender, patroller).
Modeling SC as a whole wing rather than individual craft makes for an easier-to-program “ship” in the battle environment. Fewer objects to track on the SC side, along with less need to track GW at all by removing distinct attacks against them, would make for smoother battles, even with a greater number of GW objects added as more slots get used for GW.
SC wings could be launched out with a timer on them, giving them time to get to a target, make some attacks, and then either move on to another target once the first is defeated or “retreat and rearm” once the timer runs out. Flak modules on targeted ships would cause the timers on orbiting SC wings to run out quicker, simulating SC wings being shot up, or they could focus on Accuracy reductions, like the PD modules above. Hangars would have a cooldown to try to keep SC wings out and on-target on a fairly continual basis, adversely affected by standoff range and enemy Flak activity.
To allow for different tasks, either Hangars could be set for a task (and whatever SC unit that’s applied does the task) or different tasks are set by the type of SC loaded into the Hangar (and each SC type has tiers of advancement). SC wings set to interdictor roles go after smaller full-size ships first and move up; bombers go for bigger ships and on down; defenders stay close to the launching carrier (and knock down SC wing timers like Flak); and patrollers latch on to nearby undefended ships and act as their “defenders”. I don’t know if defender/patroller Hangars would be the same size as interdictor/bomber Hangars – perhaps an M-slot equivalent H-slot Hangar with 4-SC squadrons, versus an L-slot equivalent F-slot Flight Deck with 8-SC wings – that might allow, for example, a Destroyer to have defensive Hangars and allow them to still fill a screening role for Battleships. Defensive squadrons might also offer some level of GW Accuracy debuff, similar to PD modules, but it would likely be a small effect alongside their primary anti-SC role.
Not so with missiles and torpedoes in Stellaris. In a realistic setting, these guided weapons (GW) would be able to make corrections all the way to their targets, accounting for limitations from their initial launch and defensive maneuvers by the target. In a realistic setting, GW would be very accurate, especially at any significant range, when compared to kinetic and energy weapons, and could do enormous damage on a hit. In a realistic setting, kinetic and energy weapons would likely hit with a (perhaps much) smaller percentage of shots and would also inflict less damage per hit. In this realistic setting, a warship would likely gear a large percentage of their defenses against the attacks with the greatest chance to do the most harm, that being GW.
In a relatively fair game setting, the defensive systems used against GW would knock down their effectiveness to a similar level to the other types of attacks, preferably leaving some way for them to remain unique (e.g., burst damage and/or long range for smaller ships). But Stellaris doesn’t have that right now: a limited number of filled PD slots can completely neuter the output of at least an equal number of filled GW slots (which are also each effectively twice the size of the slot defeating them). Only when a massed salvo arrives all during the same few combat days (rather than a thinner but continuous stream) does any significant chance exist. That assumes that the opponent isn’t an AI player that has decided that every one of its Corvettes and Destroyers have to be designed with Picket ship sections.
Currently in Stellaris, GW aren’t completely without merit. As an attempt to give them some level of balance, GW have significantly better range than other M-slot-equivalent weapons, and their favorable damage ratios (missiles IGNORE shields, full vs. armor, +25% vs. hull) allows them much faster destructiveness than their basic kinetic and energy cousins (which are +42% and +52% slower at destroying a ship than missiles with +25% shields and +25% armor over a given hull value, e.g., 200 shield, 200 armor, 800 hull, and +60% and 71% when shields/armor are at +50%, e.g., 400/400/800) – assuming of course that the target has no PD. GW do still have to deal with a slightly smaller Tracking value, and flight times will always result in some overkill on shots (even with retargeting) and some extra incoming damage before the shots get to a target. But they would need to be balanced much tighter if there would be no PD at all going forward.
What would be the plan moving forward? First, Point Defense as a weapon type goes away. We’ll be reducing Accuracy on GW to account for assumed point defense and jamming efforts by the targeted ships (not by screening ships, though), but those won’t be simulated on the screen. There may still be a place for GW Accuracy debuff items for ships, whether as a core component, auxiliary module, or computer effect – it would probably make sense to allow for this while increasing Tracking significantly relative to slot size.
Second, there won’t be a need for a standard Swarmer-style missile mount, as there won’t be PD mounts to overwhelm. There probably should be a wider variety of GW types, including re-introducing S- and L-slot variants (and doing away with G-slots), but a large part of the variants should be focused on allowing GW to synergize better with other weapon mixes. The current shield-penetration configuration only synergizes with Strike Craft (and creates an unbalanced damage model), while adding shield-buster (anti-shield), bomb-pumped laser (anti-armor), or exotic radiation (armor penetration) warheads would give more options for ship designers.
Third, the basic attack model for GW would need to change. Reducing Accuracy (base or after applying target debuff modules) for GW would do two things: bring the “no PD” damage rate closer to kinetics and energy, and allow for technology improvements to base Accuracy (something that only kinetics and energy got before). Increasing the cooldown (i.e., reducing the rate of fire) would also get the damage rate more in line, although it might also lock in GW as too good of a “burst damage” choice (i.e., smaller number of larger damage attacks, to limit withdraw checks and allow for complete kills). Speaking of “burst damage”: Torpedoes would need to come (way?) down on damage per hit and (again: way?) down on cooldown, to still be a good “burst” weapon (along with reduced Tracking and better ACC-debuff resistance, keeping them a good choice vs. capital ships), but no longer a mortal lock for Corvettes.
The biggest issue I see with this is exacerbating the problem with mono-fleets. If Destroyers (or other PD/Flak-mounting ships) can’t offer defensive capabilities to Battleships (which might still be the end-all, be-all), why bring them along at all? There are plenty of other changes that could be made to diversify fleets that might mitigate this, but it’s an extra concern to add to the pile.
I wanted to finish with a few words on Strike Craft and Flak mounts: I was reading another thread where someone commented that SC could be looked at as a limited-duration attack rather than a continuous-until-defeated attack. That might work, and would seem to dovetail pretty well with what I’m doing here, but I think it’s a hairier problem than with GW/PD. I would look at the same kind of change for Flak as PD, with Flak switching to a similar component/module setup or integrating directly into the PD system. But I would look for Hangars to do three things differently: produce static wings of Strike Craft that fight as a unit rather than as 4-8 individual little ships, replace wings every so often throughout the fight, and set up Hangars with SC wings with different tasks (e.g., interdictor, bomber, defender, patroller).
Modeling SC as a whole wing rather than individual craft makes for an easier-to-program “ship” in the battle environment. Fewer objects to track on the SC side, along with less need to track GW at all by removing distinct attacks against them, would make for smoother battles, even with a greater number of GW objects added as more slots get used for GW.
SC wings could be launched out with a timer on them, giving them time to get to a target, make some attacks, and then either move on to another target once the first is defeated or “retreat and rearm” once the timer runs out. Flak modules on targeted ships would cause the timers on orbiting SC wings to run out quicker, simulating SC wings being shot up, or they could focus on Accuracy reductions, like the PD modules above. Hangars would have a cooldown to try to keep SC wings out and on-target on a fairly continual basis, adversely affected by standoff range and enemy Flak activity.
To allow for different tasks, either Hangars could be set for a task (and whatever SC unit that’s applied does the task) or different tasks are set by the type of SC loaded into the Hangar (and each SC type has tiers of advancement). SC wings set to interdictor roles go after smaller full-size ships first and move up; bombers go for bigger ships and on down; defenders stay close to the launching carrier (and knock down SC wing timers like Flak); and patrollers latch on to nearby undefended ships and act as their “defenders”. I don’t know if defender/patroller Hangars would be the same size as interdictor/bomber Hangars – perhaps an M-slot equivalent H-slot Hangar with 4-SC squadrons, versus an L-slot equivalent F-slot Flight Deck with 8-SC wings – that might allow, for example, a Destroyer to have defensive Hangars and allow them to still fill a screening role for Battleships. Defensive squadrons might also offer some level of GW Accuracy debuff, similar to PD modules, but it would likely be a small effect alongside their primary anti-SC role.
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