Bigger Fleets should be harder to manage (in terms of battle effectivity)

[Emraldis]

I honestly think this idea:

Spoiler: Idea

As a thought, what if occupying (or blockading) a star system gave you warscore? You'd only get it once you'd destroyed everything in orbit in the system, and the system would need to contain a colony, but this would encourage the player to split up their fleets somewhat, since you'd need to leave behind fleets, or portions thereof, to defend conquered systems. Then the player would need to think about how many ships to leave behind, and it could allow for an opponent who is only a bit weaker in fleet power to be able to fight back, rather than loosing their entire fleet in a doomstack fight. Or, even better, you only get the warscore from occupations, if you have a fleet blockading the star system, so once I've landed an army and conquered a planet, I need to keep at least one corvette in-system to be able to gain warscore from that system. If I choose to leave only a corvette in each conquered system, the defender can then come a long with a fleet of a couple destroyers or something and destroy all of those corvettes, thus negating the warscore. If you tie this with slower fleet movement in hostile territory, that means that an attacker will need to properly fortify and defend all the systems they take, which could be done using military stations, as long as they still have that one corvette in-system. I think this may add some interesting strategic play to the war system, and help reduce the dominance of doomstacks. Ofc, warscore would have to be rebalanced somewhat with this, having a ticking warscore system would probably end up being the best, with target planets giving far more warscore than non-target planets. This would allow players to hold out with fewer planets under their control, as long as they are able to defend the systems they take.

May have some merit. It's fairly simple, and it forces fleets to split up over the course of a war, and allows for a defender to have a chance to come back from a loss later on in the war, as the enemy fleets become more and more spread out.

 

[Almond_Brown]

snip

If I were to make suggestions it would be for more ships to be required as dedicated defensive fleets or as ships in orbits to appease those populations. In real life I imagine puting all your eggs in one basket and leaving almost 100% of your territory unmanned would make people pretty unhappy. Perhaps it could be worked into a faction system somehow.

snip

In real life no Navy/Army ever informed their populace about the whereabouts of their Military forces that defend them. Besides, in space, how is a population to know they are unprotected and the Fleet is 15 LY's away in another system, unless those "protective fleets/ships" you speak of are hanging, over every planet owned, in a low orbit, for all the Peeps to see.

 

[Kamakaze Panda]

In real life no Navy/Army ever informed their populace about the whereabouts of their Military forces that defend them. Besides, in space, how is a population to know they are unprotected and the Fleet is 15 LY's away in another system, unless those "protective fleets/ships" you speak of are hanging, over every planet owned, in a low orbit, for all the Peeps to see.

I'm aware of this, I'm simply saying there should be some kind of impetus to actually garrison and defend your planets, however destruction of infrastructure or even potential loss of a world is not really a big deal and there's no overall reason to care if your people are potential casualties in that sense.

 

[Emraldis]

I'm aware of this, I'm simply saying there should be some kind of impetus to actually garrison and defend your planets, however destruction of infrastructure or even potential loss of a world is not really a big deal and there's no overall reason to care if your people are potential casualties in that sense.

With the more specialized planets in the next update, failing to defend your own planets may have a larger impact, effects like mass starvation and such are now possible. I feel that making you defend the territory you claim during a war may be a better way to split up fleets. (see post above)

 

[mrt1212]

I don't know - in a game where we have upgrades to combat roles and sentient AI the management of a space fleet seems somewhat trivial.

 

[Zwollenaer]

i think ships dont need a supply line like in HoI for example. because ships are something like autonomous units.
there can be 500k value of ships in one system, why not? but if all these ships are part of just one fleet, the individual effectiveness of each ship should go down.

Sadly they are. But why are they so autonomous? I know my primitive starting corvette can explore the entire galaxy and a fleet of any size can operate without concern on the other side of the galaxy for any length of time. But is that realistic? I can sort of see how a science vessel might be specifically designed for deep space exploration away from supply lines, but the ENTIRE fleet?

Ships have a crew. At the very least that crew needs to eat. I doubt they are growing all of their food onboard, have life support systems that run forever, refine their own FTL fuel and manufacture their own supplies. Even more so than the ships in HOI and EU4 starships should have to rely on logistical support of some sort because they operate in the most hostile environment you can imagine.

Ideally you'd need docking rights in a friendly empire or build supply bases the further out you go. This is one of the few things I like better in Galciv than in Stellaris. I wouldn't mind if there were end-game techs that eventually make ships completely autonomous, and fallen empires should start out with that ability to make them even more scary. But a young race fresh to the FTL race shouldn't have such abilities right from the start.

 

[Rath12]

Sadly they are. But why are they so autonomous? I know my primitive starting corvette can explore the entire galaxy and a fleet of any size can operate without concern on the other side of the galaxy for any length of time. But is that realistic? I can sort of see how a science vessel might be specifically designed for deep space exploration away from supply lines, but the ENTIRE fleet?

Ships have a crew. At the very least that crew needs to eat. I doubt they are growing all of their food onboard, have life support systems that run forever, refine their own FTL fuel and manufacture their own supplies. Even more so than the ships in HOI and EU4 starships should have to rely on logistical support of some sort because they operate in the most hostile environment you can imagine.

Ideally you'd need docking rights in a friendly empire or build supply bases the further out you go. This is one of the few things I like better in Galciv than in Stellaris. I wouldn't mind if there were end-game techs that eventually make ships completely autonomous, and fallen empires should start out with that ability to make them even more scary. But a young race fresh to the FTL race shouldn't have such abilities right from the start.

Ships being able to operate without supply, just much weaker should be explained by fuel skimming from gas giants.

 

[Aurtose]

While not a total solution to it, the "people will just bring a stack of multiple fleets, moving them like a single doomstack" counterargument to hard/softcapped fleet sizes could be partially solved by having fleets that warp onto other fleets cause damage.
I know that warping on to other fleets is used tactically against long-range opponents, so the inability to do so would be detrimental and would also allow defenders to lurk in entry points, making planets invulnerable. That's why damage seems viable, it still allows warp-point assassinations (albeit with a little more cost), makes doomstacked fleets unsustainable and gives defenders a chance to defend a single system by having an immobile doomstack lying in wait to destroy the attacker's daisy-chained fleets - thus promoting flanking and limited engagement on multiple fronts.

Off the top of my head the damage calculation would be something like:
Ships have a (((% of incoming fleet cap filled)+(% of waiting fleet cap filled))/2)% chance to take up to 100% hull damage
This would mean that if 2 max size fleets warped into each other, every ship in both fleet would be guaranteed to take damage, while a corvette warping into a science ship that was passing by has minimal chance of doing anything (though freak accidents are possible).
Numbers could be modified by sensors/ftl tech level as well as admiral traits and aux slot parts.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

A bigger fleet is the result of better planning and execution in every other part of the game. There's nothing wrong with bigger fleets (almost) always beating smaller fleets.

Actually I think Stellaris might be the only Paradox game that could make use of deeper, more engaging battle mechanics, because the extra doomstack-y nature of wars means that there are fewer decisive battles to keep track of. But I'd rather we keep to the non-HoI model of success in battle being 2/3 an extension of success in empire building, and 1/3 success in positioning.

So, to make the game more interesting, we need to change how the geography of war works, not nerf large fleets just for being large (implementing a supply system could be interesting - though proper supply systems are probably going to help large empires more than small ones, which would upset a ton of people).

edit to remove drunk grammar

 

[[Q]uik]

I really think a flanking bonus would be helpful. But alas, we've, aside from HOIIV not seen such a bonus since the good ol days of Victoria: Rev. So I am highly sceptical of that ever happening; But I stand fast believing that flanking bonuses - and bonuses like that, are helpful in encouraging the player to play with mutliple fleets. (Attrition and defensive bonuses also help)

 

[[Q]uik]

A bigger fleet is the result of better planning and execution in every other part of the game. There's nothing wrong with bigger fleets (almost) always beating smaller fleets.

Actually I think Stellaris might be the only Paradox game that could make use of deeper, more engaging battle mechanics, because the extra doomstack-y nature of wars means that there are fewer decisive battles to keep track of. But I'd rather we keep to the non-HoI model of success in battle being 2/3 an extension of success in empire building, and 1/3 success in positioning.

So, to make the game more interesting, we need to change how the geography of war works, not nerf large fleets just for being large (though implementing a supply system could be interesting - though proper supply systems are probably going to help large empires more than small ones, which would upset a ton of people).

To be honest, I really dislike how stellaris is right now, because it almost always boils down into one, big fight of one big doomstack with little to no planning.
Well, if you can luire them into your battlestations .. i guess that's a bit of a tactical decision, but aside from that It's just boom i died, or you did. And now I capture planets and maybe i split my forces now just to speed it along but yeah it's free reign.

That, is incredibly boring design, in my honest opinion. And playing co-op or with multiple alliances wars doesn't solve it, as it's still a matter of "follow me and let's kill them"

 

[Mcwynne]

More impactful positioning (such as flanking and terrain) and supply lines could be fun. But I have a feeling that size caps would just add a bunch of extra microing without solving anything.

I might be in a minority here, but I dont think that the problem with doom stacks is the stacks themselfs. The problem as I see is that the most important target in a war by far, is the enemy fleet, and the only way to protect you fleet is to make it bigger.

Thus doomstacks are a symptom of a larger problem and I dont think arbitrary size limmits will solve that.

 

[[Q]uik]

More impactful positioning (such as flanking and terrain) and supply lines could be fun. But I have a feeling that size caps would just add a bunch of extra microing without solving anything.

I might be in a minority here, but I dont think that the problem with doom stacks is the stacks themselfs. The problem as I see is that the most important target in a war by far, is the enemy fleet, and the only way to protect you fleet is to make it bigger.

Thus doomstacks are a symptom of a larger problem and I dont think arbitrary size limmits will solve that.

Pretty much this.

 

[methegrate]

More impactful positioning (such as flanking and terrain) and supply lines could be fun. But I have a feeling that size caps would just add a bunch of extra microing without solving anything.

I might be in a minority here, but I dont think that the problem with doom stacks is the stacks themselfs. The problem as I see is that the most important target in a war by far, is the enemy fleet, and the only way to protect you fleet is to make it bigger.

Thus doomstacks are a symptom of a larger problem and I dont think arbitrary size limmits will solve that.

Another plus to this. Might be the best way I've seen it put in the entire forum.

 

[Sibericus]

Maybe instead of applying the ship cap to all of an empire's ships, it would be applied individually to each fleet.