Automatic rebuilding of fleets

[dilvish8]

Hi,

I tried to do a search, but couldn't find anything so here it goes:

I think it would be nice if we could configure fleets with ship numbers per design and let the planets build them themselves. For example i want a fleet that has 30 friend ships, 15 fellow ships, 5 companion ships and then just set the fleet to auto build.

Then after a battle, i could just move the fleet back into my own space and let the fleet auto rebuild lost ships, so that i don't have to click the build orders manually and count everything by hand. In the stream we saw that you had to go to each spaceport and queue all the ships you want manually and then manually merge the ships into the fleet you want.

I think this would be a good time saver in MP games, because you won't be able to pause at will. (From the MP rules i saw some people announced for their MP games, pause was mostly used for war declarations only)

 

[Lamahorse]

I'm hoping that they have imported the army builder from EU4. It should mean that we can build our fleets at the appropriate mix.

I hope that there is no 'optimal' setup for fleets in Stellaris. Variability and change is good.

 

[dilvish8]

I'm hoping that they have imported the army builder from EU4. It should mean that we can build our fleets at the appropriate mix.

I hope that there is no 'optimal' setup for fleets in Stellaris. Variability and change is good.

I don't really remember the army builder in EU4, i haven't played it that much, but after what i googled about it, it looks that it would do the trick. As long as it can also maintain the fleet as specified while it is in friendly space or maybe you would be able to send reinforcements while the fleet is on an away mission.

 

[Bladrov XII]

Agreed. Though I could see the concern in too much of this automation creating a game that plays itself. But yes, personally, this kind of logistical fiddling I could do without.

 

[dilvish8]

Agreed. Though I could see the concern in too much of this automation creating a game that plays itself. But yes, personally, this kind of logistical fiddling I could do without.

Even Distant Worlds plays itself and look how popular it is.

I'm not afraid that Stellaris would ever play itself, there's plenty to do and plenty to think about. Every bit of automation would only help you keep thinking about the Grand scale. Besides, as a leader you would probably just fill an order for a fleet and let your aides to do the heavy lifting.

 

[Noobleton]

Those EU4 army templates are a really nice feature and I'd be happy to see them included in Stellaris.

If we do a WC on EU4 can we have a convertor for EU4 to Stellaris?

 

[Xylophone]

I'm hoping that they have imported the army builder from EU4. It should mean that we can build our fleets at the appropriate mix.

I hope that there is no 'optimal' setup for fleets in Stellaris. Variability and change is good.

I think there might be an optimal ship mix, but the different weapon types and fittings might create rock-paper-scissors meta.

 

[Oscot]

automate
AUTOMATE
AUTOMATE
AUTOMATE

Perhaps you would prefer to watch a movie over playing a videogame.

I hear Automatons is pretty good efficient in terms of mouse clicks per output.

 

[yafeshan]

I would like such option. It was great help in EU4. It can be even better gameplay in stellaris if we have auto fleet build.

It is not pure automation. We still design every detail of ships and decide on the compasition of the fleet. Auto build will only decrease meaningless clickfest.

 

[doomdude1]

From the stream I saw that building a fleet amounted to a sort of busywork, especially since they didn't focus on actually thinking it through rather just showing off the features.

 

[dilvish8]

Perhaps you would prefer to watch a movie over playing a videogame.

When i want a clickfest, i play diablo or any other hack 'n slash. Spending minutes just clicking through planets queuing ship build orders is less enjoyable than actually planning military operations, diplomatic treaties, exploration, pop management and other stuff that stellaris allows you to do.

 

[Dunbal]

Hi,

I tried to do a search, but couldn't find anything so here it goes:

I think it would be nice if we could configure fleets with ship numbers per design and let the planets build them themselves.

...

I think this would be a good time saver in MP games,

Distant Worlds proved that too much automation is bad. Everyone I know turns the automation off when they play that. Because if you're going to play a game, you should oh I don't know - play the game not watch the game play for you. Suggest - yes. Automate - no.

And why do you need to save time in a game, which is essentially a time sink? So you can have more time to look at pretty star animations?

 

[Temetrisse]

Based on what we see in the Streams Stellaris doesn't seem to have massive amount of fleets. So personally I don't think of manually assembling them is a such of a big hassle. After all IIRC there are rally points. So basically just draft all stuff into a few systems and sort them out there.

Though this opinion came through after considering some other posts in this thread. Initially I also thought of this kind of a good idea, bit of a nice-to-have-the-option kind of thing. But yeah I guess I wouldn't really want the game to play itself either. Could perhaps work like HoI4 division templates: have a fleet template, fill in the ships, choose a place to rally and then the system would sort production orders to appropriate shipyards.

 

[Amor_Fati]

Things like the Army builder for EU IV is not "automation". You design the army, you choose where and when to build, all it does is reducing the clicks needed to do that.

Plz create an interface like the Army Builder. You design the ships, You choose which ships go to the fleet, you decide when and where to build: And would save a lot of unecessary clicks. Project Augustus already used my clicking stamina for what, a year?

 

[dilvish8]

I don't understand why everyone thinks that this feature would let Stellaris play itself. I did not suggest that the fleets would automatically just appear out of nowhere or that the planets would just build fleets randomly. The only thing i would like to have is that i don't have to click every planet -> every shipyard -> build -> select ship -> click 10+ times (for corvettes for example) and rinse and repeat for another planet...

I just want to have complete control over my fleet composition without having to click like crazy. It is basically a fleet construction queue based on templates rather than having to click per ship. It would help keeping track of how many ships of what design are built. If i have 5 planets with queues, i'd have to click through all of them to see how many of what designs are in the queue. It might not be too much hassle when placing orders right now, but imagine you're loading a save. You'd have to go through all your fleets and all your queues to see what's where and what can you count on in the near future.

It is 1. informative, so you quickly know where you stand in the ship/fleet department and 2. convenient, so you don't have to click through many forms to assemble a fleet. There is absolutely no "game plays itself" involved in any of this.

 

[dilvish8]

And why do you need to save time in a game, which is essentially a time sink? So you can have more time to look at pretty star animations?

To each his own. If you play on slow speed, ok, you have a lot of time, but if you want to play fast, you don't have so much time to just browse around and just look at pretty forms. In large MP games, late game during war time, i can imagine, will get pretty hectic.
Besides, nobody asks you not to do it the old fashioned way.
You said yourself, every distant worlds player turns the automation off. What's stopping you to do the same if this feature is implemented?

PS.: I like the star animations...

 

[hagen_hase]

Perhaps you would prefer to watch a movie over playing a videogame.

I hear Automatons is pretty good efficient in terms of mouse clicks per output.

Planning is way more important than clicking 200 times on a little icon, this isnt a facebookgame.

less time clicking to build more ships, more time to destroy ships.

 

[Caran Neroon]

Please update the AI. The AI send new build ships in a peacified system. This is not very clever. And for players: Ship Autosend to mobilisation points as comfort function would be nice

 

[Bladrov XII]

Things like the Army builder for EU IV is not "automation". You design the army, you choose where and when to build, all it does is reducing the clicks needed to do that.

Plz create an interface like the Army Builder. You design the ships, You choose which ships go to the fleet, you decide when and where to build: And would save a lot of unecessary clicks. Project Augustus already used my clicking stamina for what, a year?

I think the big question is whether having to manually build and direct fleet replacements is something that overloads the player when running the game at, say, Normal speed. If you have to slam on that pause button and go back to your core worlds to place orders for replacements, I would argue there's something that can be improved there. If, however, there is plenty to engage the player, on Normal speed without pausing, during wars such that we never feel idle, then I would argue that the proposed "fleet builder" option is helpful without overly automating the game. On the other hand, if wartime fleet control is paced so slowly and doesn't require much attention, and the latest Blorg stream suggests that is far from being the case, then I would agree that a "fleet builder" feature would be an excessive amount of automation.

I think there might be an optimal ship mix, but the different weapon types and fittings might create rock-paper-scissors meta.

I think broadly speaking you'll want to mix a solid core of heavy hitting big ships with an escort screen of corvettes and destroyers. Just going off what was shown in the Blorg stream.

 

[dilvish8]

From the Blorg stream it is obvious, that the player will be often faced with multiple fronts, so one single ball of death fleet won't do. The player will have to manage multiple fleets on several fronts, so there's going to be a lot of multitasking. Anything that will help the player not having to click through a lot of menus would be very helpful.

One way would be to have dynamic reinforcements for fleets at the front. The other way i would imagine would be having a backup fleet, that the player might want to use to replace one that's severely damaged to hold the line and pulling the severely damaged fleet home for rebuilding.

In the stream we saw a bit of retreating and a bit of chasing. And The Blorg Commonality isn't even that big of a blob and they were faced against a relatively small alliance. Imagine two superpowers fighting along a front, that spans across the whole galaxy. Do you still think there'll be a lot of time for fleet micro management? I think it'll get very fast in late game wars, where the loss of a few key systems (hyperlanes) could mean defeat if the player is not fast enough to secure them. Even catching someone trying to use a wormhole could be crucial, because a two small fleets together make a big one.