1.8.1 - The State of Combat Balance

[Starisc]

Really interesting insights about the power of 4 shields + 2 generators. Have you tested the swiss army knife cruiser or the 50/50% combo with torp cruisers against this BB? Unwittingly they seem almost perfectly geared towards 100% shield pen as well: devastator torps, energy torps & bombers. They lack the X arc emitter, but last I heard their targetting AI was quite wonky as well.

 

[nestorius]

a rework would be good but getting rid of doom stacks is not entirely a good idea. How many fleets would you even want? I think max about 3 could theoretically be handled any more than that it becomes a chore.

 

[Dr_Gentech]

Which

Really interesting insights about the power of 4 shields + 2 generators. Have you tested the swiss army knife cruiser or the 50/50% combo with torp cruisers against this BB? Unwittingly they seem almost perfectly geared towards 100% shield pen as well: devastator torps, energy torps & bombers. They lack the X arc emitter, but last I heard their targetting AI was quite wonky as well.

Which BB specifically? I've tested against three battleships with four shields using the swiss, the "all L missiles" battleship, Giga + 4 KA, and Tachyon Lance + 2 KA + 2 Plasma. The Swiss shredded them all, but I was testing at equivalent fleet cap rather than equivalent minerals so it wouldn't be as indicative as it should be.

 

[Gomine]

we could use a hoi styled system with fleets automatically acting on assigned orders it would help post Doom stack with mirco

 

[Gratak]

a rework would be good but getting rid of doom stacks is not entirely a good idea. How many fleets would you even want? I think max about 3 could theoretically be handled any more than that it becomes a chore.

Probably true. Especially with jump drives. But imho the main "doomstack issue" is how effective doomstacks are at annihilating even slightly smaller stacks.

 

[drPeacock]

Haven't tried with disruptors, but destroyers with KA + flak are amazing and will shred anything to pieces.
Unfortunately they also get shredded to pieces very easily themselves so you'll need plenty of corvettes and cruisers as well to soak up the damage.

Can anyone confirm if mixing in destroyers with pd+disruptors and an adv. afterburner into a fleet of plasma/bomber/torp cruisers and giga/arty battleships is worth it in late game engagements? Since destroyers now charge forward, it stands to reason they'd be effective as screening and early deshield to keep your more expensive ships from getting targeted first?

 

[romothecus]

we could use a hoi styled system with fleets automatically acting on assigned orders it would help post Doom stack with mirco

100% this

especially because it would help to have some sense of logistics to give the map texture. by which i mean fleet bases would need infrastructure, materials, etc. the current station system is simplistic, bland, and uniform.

 

[Grand Stone]

Very good initial post.

I also have a few addition which could be considered...

-One big super stack should not be optimal combat strategy.

-Design should be just as important as size of the fleet.

---

In addition, I actually find the game lacking in components. There is one choice in computers, one choice in engines, one choice in just about anything. There are to few choices...

 

[Gomine]

yeah but how

 

[Grand Stone]

yeah but how

Good question But these are questions which should be adresed.


Also, one comment on missiles...

Have you tested a smaller sized missles navy versus a slightly bigger (with PD) battle? My impression is at one point you get completely immune to the enemy.,,

 

[Gomine]

I personally haven't done any tests beside using the Swiss Army knife cruisers but shouldn't swarmed missiles be used specifically to counter heavy PD

 

[Grand Stone]

I haven't tested warmed missles, but for other missiles, at a crittical difference in size, you will do no damage cuz heavy PD kills everything. And even if they don't, a fighting as the underdog is MORE difficult for missles/carrier fleets compared to kinetic & energy weapon. Would be interesting to get some numbers of this effect.

 

[Riftwalker]

we could use a hoi styled system with fleets automatically acting on assigned orders it would help post Doom stack with mirco

whenever i bring this up i get downvoted, I really think the only way to remove doomstacks and micro is to abstract out 'naval' warfare a little. I really like how the naval system in HoI allows for an increased amount of ship roles and how fleet comps effect your fleet effectiveness in different types of concentrations and how big a region they should cover.


here's what i wrote.

Spoiler

you don't pick specific targets for your navy and whatnot, but regions and orders. Adds so much more you can do without increasing the CPU load.

battles start small and slowly trickle in with reinforcements with starting ships and reinforcement trickle based upon your fleet's concentration. Having good Sensor coverage of the area (provided by planets, fighters/bombers, scout ships, and a small amount by normal ships based upon concentration) determines reinforcement rate and how easy it is for your fleet to find the enemy and high levels can make retreat extremely difficult.

Should add supply, but abstract it out with simply building convoy ships added to a pool, these can be destroyed to strangle a large fleet, applying attrition.

Sneaky ships can sneak up on enemy fleets reducing the effect enemy sensor coverage has on them allowing them to quickly hit convoys and then run.

Fleets have a optimal supply range, but can be told ignore the range to start taking supply attrition, with possibly different modes on how far they'll go in supply before returning home to resupply(merely turning off the effect). battles outside of their supply range will have to wait longer for reinforcements to start trickling in.

build forts to extend your supply range around them, less than stations, and frontier outposts add supply range comparable to stations.

This gives you multiple avenues to attack enemy fleets. Give orders for a few different things.

Siege - go after planets, start hitting the planets in the region

interdiction - try to start many battles to slow the enemy down, reinforce the smallest battles and retreat from ones where you get outnumbered.

Search and Destroy - Try to find enemy and start a battle, then pile onto that battle. Can still make multiple battle but less so than interdiction

Convoy Raid - focus on convoys and retreat from other battles that don't involve them.

Protect Convoys - try to assist convoys and retreat from other battles.

Scout - retreat from battles but provide sensor coverage.

FYI, retreating would be like HoI4, where ships have to pull out of battles, the distance being determined by sensor coverage.

Also look up HoI4s current naval combat to see how combat would be processed, using ranged, fight/bomber, submarine tactics etc.

etc, etc, etc

 

[Gratak]

we could use a hoi styled system with fleets automatically acting on assigned orders it would help post Doom stack with mirco

Good luck with implementing a hoi style system with warp, wormholes and jump drives!

"Let's defend this system, oh wait, I'm attacked from 30 sides... Hmm..."

 

[Riftwalker]

Good luck with implementing a hoi style system with warp, wormholes and jump drives!

"Let's defend this system, oh wait, I'm attacked from 30 sides... Hmm..."

Warp = lower concentration but better scan coverage
Hyperlane = convoy and better concentration but low scan coverage
wormhole = low concentration but quick reinforcement time.

 

[Gomine]

never was a fan a jump drives

 

[4o1XOHBV6In4]

You seem to have enough energy to employ point defence - is the reason you don't have it to lower the battleship cost? I feel like you could add it and it would end up better, I'll test now against 6L missile

Well, my goal was showing that there is a BB design that beats missile/strikecraft BB designs without using any pd at all. I couldn't do that, the shield regen is just too hard to overcome. But in the process it started looking like the 6 L-missiles 4 Shields BB had literally no counter but pd within BB only fleets. So when I ran the Unshield design I couldn't use pd for that reason - I was specifically looking for something other than pd that beats the missile steelman design from above.

I first ran a test with marauder missiles in the weapon slots and empty pd slots to just get a general idea if this was going to pan out. The result was the Unshield design won but the Unshield's marauder missiles didn't do a single point of hull damage. So to show that the problem is literally shield regen and nothing but shield regen I just removed them as well, to show that a ship with 3 weapon modules can beat a fully armed ship easily as long as a) it's protected by heavy shield regen and b) can ignore shields completely.

So that's why there are no weapons in those slots even though the design would generally be better if it was using some. But I did test 100 unshield vs 102 missile steelman (as was the correct ratio before removing the additional weapons) anyway.

I think my personal conclusion is that missiles are in a pretty good spot, without pd they're probably better than any single weapon type out there and probably worse than the old lance + 2ka + plasma combination against random (AI, Scourge, AFE) designs.
But they're the second best counter to heavy shield opponents with regen (for BBs), which are also the strongest defensive option overall. Assuming that full shield defense becomes the meta (or maybe it already is?) for multiplayer missiles would then be good in multiplayer if you can send them into opponents with insufficient pd. They should also do great against the Unbidden I assume.
And the Unshield design that straight up ignores shield seems to be the counter play BBs have to offer to heavy shield designs. It's also flexible because it has pd options and can mount various M- and S-weapons. But according to your tests there's an even better cruiser design for shieldbusting? I'll have to look into that but probably not today.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

I was hoping to find some tests like this but with a different approach. I was hoping to find a study showing that it doesn't pay off (much or nothing at all) or indeed it does to research more advanced components for ships.

I mean, if you take a corvette with Tier 1 components and one with Tier 4 components, the most advanced one will cost 2.5x more, have slightly better evasion, accuracy and tracking, 50% more damage and the only significant improvements are with speed (almost double) and 3.5x more shield.
I'm asking if, in the end, the economical and scientific effort of going all the way on a Tier 4 ship pays off, because my gut feeling as that while naked corvette might have been weakened, it might still be worth the effort just because you can research more pressing stuff (and use your science ships to research debris to make sure these component technologies won't occupy random research card space).

 

[Evaris]

Which

Which BB specifically? I've tested against three battleships with four shields using the swiss, the "all L missiles" battleship, Giga + 4 KA, and Tachyon Lance + 2 KA + 2 Plasma. The Swiss shredded them all, but I was testing at equivalent fleet cap rather than equivalent minerals so it wouldn't be as indicative as it should be.

I do believe the BB type to be tested against the swiss is the Unshield/Omega BB designs, with bombers and focused arcs being the primary means of damage dealt (ignoring shields and most armor in the process.)

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

I was hoping to find some tests like this but with a different approach. I was hoping to find a study showing that it doesn't pay off (much or nothing at all) or indeed it does to research more advanced components for ships.

I mean, if you take a corvette with Tier 1 components and one with Tier 4 components, the most advanced one will cost 2.5x more, have slightly better evasion, accuracy and tracking, 50% more damage and the only significant improvements are with speed (almost double) and 3.5x more shield.
I'm asking if, in the end, the economical and scientific effort of going all the way on a Tier 4 ship pays off, because my gut feeling as that while naked corvette might have been weakened, it might still be worth the effort just because you can research more pressing stuff (and use your science ships to research debris to make sure these component technologies won't occupy random research card space).

Did this, got downvoted, decided not to pursue.