Combat Changes 1.5?

[darianstarfire]

I really like Stellaris and enjoy what it set's out to be: grand strategy in space.

Here's the rub: I look at the changes in 1.5, like them, and feel like I'm complaining about sour grapes. I like grapes too.

The trouble is that I haven't seen or am ignorant of any combat changes in 1.5. Currently it's really difficult to protect assets with defensive structures. I personally want combat to feel like Sins for a Solar Empire, not in presentation, but in abstraction. It is possible in Sins to defend a planet with planetary defenses. A well comprised fleet will defeat those defenses as a rule but it normally takes precious time.

In Stellaris, an offensive fleet warps/moves into an area and is able to kill most defensive structures without problem. I play more whack a mole when the AI just runs away.

To summarize most points:

1. Better defense turtle choice (all planets should be able to build decent defenses)
2. Ability to stop enemy when in your territory and not automatically brought into one location with four other fortresses focus on the fleet. Or the opposite where enemy fleet would warp in and decimate the one fortress that wasn't cheesily set up.
3. Other ways to prevent enemy from easily traveling in my territory.
4. Method for making troop transport a little less micromanaging

 

[smjjames]

The Banks patch and Utopia expansion don't seem to be focused on combat changes at all. There probably are tweaks, but Wiz hasn't talked about any of them and we likely won't find out what the changes are until the patch notes get released.

 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

The trouble is that I haven't seen or am ignorant of any combat changes in 1.5. Currently it's really difficult to protect assets with defensive structures. I personally want combat to feel like Sins for a Solar Empire, not in presentation, but in abstraction. It is possible in Sins to defend a planet with planetary defenses. A well comprised fleet will defeat those defenses as a rule but it normally takes precious time.

Sins defenses were far, far stronger than ships for cost, unless you took the anti-defenses ship, in which case they stood little chance. It wasn't really invigorating. The nature of travel in Sins also meant that you had 1-3 frontiers rather than the in-depth defenses you'd need in Stellaris even ignoring the far greater importance of vulnerable non-planetary stations in Stellaris.

I would like stronger defenses in Stellaris but turtle gameplay is never going to work when any strong defenses can be bypassed for weaker targets. It will always come down to fleets in the end.

 

[Neocv]

Stronger defences seems something needed to improve war in general, in fact the planetary defenses should deal damage to the fleets, like a planet with full defensive abilities shouldn't be able to defeat a fleet of 100k but shoud be able to defeat a bunch of half-assed corvettes without problems. Of course that this alone won't solve the problems that war has in Stellaris, but with the right modifications war could/should become far more engaging and fun that currently is.

But that a things to be done in the the future, due the changes needed being too massive since that many things would have to be reworked.

 

[AvalancheZ250]

I really like Stellaris and enjoy what it set's out to be: grand strategy in space.

Here's the rub: I look at the changes in 1.5, like them, and feel like I'm complaining about sour grapes. I like grapes too.

The trouble is that I haven't seen or am ignorant of any combat changes in 1.5. Currently it's really difficult to protect assets with defensive structures. I personally want combat to feel like Sins for a Solar Empire, not in presentation, but in abstraction. It is possible in Sins to defend a planet with planetary defenses. A well comprised fleet will defeat those defenses as a rule but it normally takes precious time.

In Stellaris, an offensive fleet warps/moves into an area and is able to kill most defensive structures without problem. I play more whack a mole when the AI just runs away.

To summarize most points:

1. Better defense turtle choice (all planets should be able to build decent defenses)
2. Ability to stop enemy when in your territory and not automatically brought into one location with four other fortresses focus on the fleet. Or the opposite where enemy fleet would warp in and decimate the one fortress that wasn't cheesily set up.
3. Other ways to prevent enemy from easily traveling in my territory.
4. Method for making troop transport a little less micromanaging

Agreed. Planetary defenses like shield generators should be a common technology, not a rare one. Right now combat is too trivial. Warp fleet in, bomb colony to pieces, land troops, garrison half and embark the other half then rinse and repeat.

 

[The Founder]

The only thing Wiz confirmed here was "I will look into some buffs for missiles".
There is also a tweak with how many defense armies can be on a planet (based on pops). And apparently landing now has to be done in waves (wich is only a minor inconvenience). Also some general rework of the Armies (Gene Warriors will no longer be "the best" in every metric).

One of the next Expansion will be likely a Warfare Focussed one. So any changes will likely be saved for then.

 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Stronger defences seems something needed to improve war in general, in fact the planetary defenses should deal damage to the fleets, like a planet with full defensive abilities shouldn't be able to defeat a fleet of 100k but shoud be able to defeat a bunch of half-assed corvettes without problems. Of course that this alone won't solve the problems that war has in Stellaris, but with the right modifications war could/should become far more engaging and fun that currently is.

No remotely balanced defense is going to be anything but a roadbump against a doomstack..... Defenses actually capable of standing off a fleet in Stellaris will bog the game down entirely or end up in stupid crap warfare like 'win every single war ever by letting them bleed against your space forts and then counterattacking' which isn't any better than the status quo.

 

[Neocv]

No remotely balanced defense is going to be anything but a roadbump against a doomstack..... Defenses actually capable of standing off a fleet in Stellaris will bog the game down entirely or end up in stupid crap warfare like 'win every single war ever by letting them bleed against your space forts and then counterattacking' which isn't any better than the status quo.

Defenses were only a single feature that could be improved, but my whole point of view is that war has to be reworked from scratch(or almost) to become interesting(to me), only this way it will solve the problems like doomstack, defense , armies. As the war it is now, I can't think in anything that could be done without majors improvements/reworks.
My sugestion would only work and be effective if other major changes were applied.

 

[darianstarfire]

Defense should feel like an obstacle to overcome but not enough to bog the game down. Stellaris effectively needs a version of forts but not a sieging mechanism like EU4 but a set number of defenses that defend a planet. Right now, defenses are irrelevant.

Sins of a Solar Empire handles this by allowing a planet to have a certain number of defensive systems. Smart players handle these defenses with long-artillery. The player can also build powerful stations but these takes a lot of resources that could have possibly been allocated to more systems. A larger fleet can still wipe large stations but it takes time that might be enough to bring the main fleet back to save the day.

It won't lie. I wish Stellaris's grand strategy with awesome events was meshed with SINS combat and defense structure.

 

[Slarkon]

No remotely balanced defense is going to be anything but a roadbump against a doomstack..... Defenses actually capable of standing off a fleet in Stellaris will bog the game down entirely or end up in stupid crap warfare like 'win every single war ever by letting them bleed against your space forts and then counterattacking' which isn't any better than the status quo.

Sounds Great lol. I love massive static defence stations. Huge fortresses lines oif defences.
One of the things in sins was a starbase self destruct which could kill everything but the top tier ships.

 

[Slarkon]

Even with the Mods for tier4 Defence structures i still find them too weak.

 

[The Founder]

Sins of a Solar Empire handles this by allowing a planet to have a certain number of defensive systems. Smart players handle these defenses with long-artillery. The player can also build powerful stations but these takes a lot of resources that could have possibly been allocated to more systems. A larger fleet can still wipe large stations but it takes time that might be enough to bring the main fleet back to save the day.

While it is tempting to compare SoSE to Stellaris due to both having a realtime nature, SoSe is also effectively locked into Hyperlane Travel.
Stellaris is not. It has 3+1 Drivetypes. So that throws all attempts to adopt SoSE defense mechanics out of hte Window. Unless we are talking about a "True Hyperspace Only" game, for wich the Diplomatic and Build AI are simply not designed.

 

[Daphne24]

I would like more improvements so it is easier to judge what "Equivalent" means. I have been trying to outpace the AI so I can attack before they inadvertently declare war, but I do not know if it is necessary. I also want to know if should just spam Assault Armies, as that is what it seems the AI likes to do. They don't count towards Naval Capacity, and I don't know if that is on purpose or an oversight.

 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

While it is tempting to compare SoSE to Stellaris due to both having a realtime nature, SoSe is also effectively locked into Hyperlane Travel.
Stellaris is not. It has 3+1 Drivetypes. So that throws all attempts to adopt SoSE defense mechanics out of hte Window. Unless we are talking about a "True Hyperspace Only" game, for wich the Diplomatic and Build AI are simply not designed.

It is not that much different, since they can still go where they please.

 

[darianstarfire]

I actually don't intend to play any more Stellaris games with anything but just Hyperlane Travel. @Wiz stated in one stream that having the three different types of travel has made changing things overall a lot more difficult. It's already challenging enough as a player to know where the AI is going half the time and there is very little I can do to stop them. The AI blowing up mining station is actually incredibly annoying and there's no defense against it. I use SINS as an example because the combat/fighting/paper,rock,scissor experience is far superior as to be absurd, but SINS has nothing on Stellaris' event/governance/race system.

 

[The Founder]

I actually don't intend to play any more Stellaris games with anything but just Hyperlane Travel. @Wiz stated in one stream that having the three different types of travel has made changing things overall a lot more difficult. It's already challenging enough as a player to know where the AI is going half the time and there is very little I can do to stop them.

I call it the "Sword of the Stars" Problem. In Theory having different Drivesystems (like in SotS and SotS 2) sounds like fun.
But in practice it actually makes stuff a lot harder on player, programmer and AI alike.

 

[Stoßtrupp Gold]

Higher HP (several times more than they have now) and armor for defense stations (fortess...) would be a start. Maybe a damage mulitplier or just a lot more weapon slots would add to this.

Allowing to build the defenses way more closer so they support each other would be the another way. Though as this based on multiple buildings it might bog down some systems if one make real use of it.

 

[domein]

Death-bloom defense setups are somewhat effective, till the late game 100k fleets come around to play. Though expensive to maintain, having a def fleet around costs almost the same.

 

[Starisc]

Buffing defensive structures in a matter of increasing their damage and staying power will likely not solve the problem: Investing in a fleet is always more valuable. It is more flexible as it moves where defense is needed (too slow atm allowing for cheese tactics of hitnrun against FE way stronger than you). Plus fleet also allow offensive actions. Unless defensive are economically so cheap that they are a nobrainer, it wont work. And then they would likely be OP, be spammed everywhere and we have a nightmare ruining the fun.

First, forts in EU4 work because they block movement. Due to they different travel methods in Stellaris (hyper lanes would work) this is difficult. Nevertheless, with clear visuals which systems are blocked by which defensive structure, this could prevent AI and players ignoring outer defenses and jumping to the economic heartland to wreak havoc.

Second, how about a defensive structure, that allows for quicker movement of your fleets to this system? Kind of a reverse emergency retreat. Click to summon fleet. Together with defensive auras to boosts, incoming fleet it could be effective in allowing for meaningful defense without taking away too many resources or overbuffing defense.

 

[Slynx]

No remotely balanced defense is going to be anything but a roadbump against a doomstack

actually Citadel (fan mod for t4 def station) with a little buff from "SD" could potentially work. unless it's a very late game, where no one can possibly stop the doomstack except another doomstack.
but in vanilla you'd probably can't do anything. if you have 100k fleet even leviathans of FE are almost not a threat. what can possibly a tiny lonely station could do?

ps: i always enjoy when ai or people place their defensive platform with a snare near their frontier outposts. saves a lot of time